The newest thing in computing?

I've been reading Nicholas Negroponte's Being Digital, a book that's been recommended to me by several people, so I thought it was time to pick it up. I found the following passage interesting:

The general interface with personal computers has been treated as a physical design problem. But interface is not just about the look and feel of a computer. It is about the creation of personality, the design of intelligence, and building machines that can recognize human expression... The challenge for the next decade is not just to give people bigger screens, better sound quality, and easier-to-use graphical input devices. It is to make computers that know you, learn about your needs, and understand verbal and nonverbal languages... The burden of interaction today has been placed totally on the shoulders of the human party. Something as banal as printing a computer file can be a debilitating exercise that resembles voodoo more than respectable human behaviour.

Having recently purchased a replacement computer with Windows Vista (the only choice outside of going with Mac), this debilitation is making itself felt. For example, our (new!) printer does not have the drivers for Vista, meaning we cannot print directly from the new computer!

Sad thing is, Negroponte wrote that passage in 1995. We're now past the decade during which he proposed that we make computers more useful, and they've become more of a burden on the human user than ever before! At least with my C64, I knew exactly what I was getting and if I didn't know how to get it, I knew I had to go back to my BASIC code book and figure it out. Now? I haven't a clue. I can turn in on, then I usually just hope for the best!