They can do anything!

I came late to the party, didn't have an email address till about 1997 so I still remember the excitement of that "New Mail" sound and opening the mail smiling, no really it was new I liked it.
So today I have maybe a dozen email addresses and get a new mail every few minutes but don't smile so much.

It's not all spam in fact I've got that screwed down pretty well and most of the stuff (on the works address) is about security, updates, backups or server reports all of it I'm meant to keep on top of to try and protect the company from the cracks in the technological tool.
In years to come they will marvel at the "One technology to bind them all" idea. Ever since the arrival of windows 95 we have been sold the idea that a "PC could improve any part of business", whoopee bring it on!
With the "Do anything" promise should have come a a rider of "with unknown others able to do anything to your PC too"

Maybe we need appliances, modular limited tools that don't do "Everything" but just do enough.
I doubt most of you will remember those pens with many inks that kicked around in the 70's, they had maybe six inks you chose by sliding any one of the radial buttons down.
Do anything pen fantastic eh?
No they were bulky and the buttons for the other inks got in the way.
Nice idea but the single ink pen won out because it did what was needed and didn't carry extra bulk complexity or need for the user to tailor their usage to the peculiarities of the tool.
In my opinion that is where we are with PC's everything is built in but the extra features really chafe.

What if you had a small touch screen on the desk that handled email and basic web browsing, like IPhone useability but with 1024+ resolution linked to your main appliance (which obviously cannot handle email or web browsing) the interface between them is format restricted so that a graphical page layout could be piped but not an exe or active URL.
Most of the threats I've had to deal with are from "dubious surfing" "dodgy emails" or "Free" downloads. If the user can't migrate the threat from the Pad to the main appliance the risk stays local and limited.
The pad has enough processing to encrypt and upload it's backup to the main appliance and maybe boots from a clean image each day but that jokey email from your friend? unless it can be saved in a recognised sterile format it won't survive the backup.
I want security reliability and trust before I want transparent windows, Vista is not aimed at business.
I want to be able to turn off the main appliance but leave the low powered pad running, to touch the "away" part of the screen as I walk away and have the screen go super low power mode.
I want to know I'm collecting my emails but using so little power it could run off a solar panel or the energy harvested from my swivel chair.

We are at a strange phase we could do so much if we "didn't start from here" there is so much ingrained thinking. Vista "enhanced" security is crippled because they don't want to ailienate customers, we could do so much but we won't because the carbon layer is not developing as fast as the silicon.