Metaphors for the Cell

John Markoff of The New York Times, writing in today's paper, claims that our cell phones are built on a metaphor.

It has been 25 years since the desktop, with its files and folders, was introduced as a way to think about what went on inside a personal computer. The World Wide Web brought other ways of imagining the flow of data. With the dominance of the cellphone, a new metaphor is emerging for how we organize, find and use information.

Here's the article.

What is this new metaphor? Do you see it in your cell phone? Do tell

Stephenson, Command Lines, and Metaphors

Neal Stephenson writes:

"So an OS is a stack of metaphors and abstractions that stands between you and the telegrams, and embodying various tricks the programmer used to convert the information you're working with - be it images, e-mail messages, movies, or word-processing documents - into the necklaces of bytes that are the only things computers know how to work with" (Stephenson 18).

Look at the OS (operating system) and the GUI (graphical user interface) you're using right now. Can you find some metaphors or abstractions? Do share!