Need for simplified technology

There is a great article I read the other day about a growing need for simplicity in computer technology: specifically making your computer easier to use.

As the article points out, there is a lot of unneeded complexity in today technology that makes our lives more complex rather than simplifying it.
"Today's technology is intrusive and overbearing. It leaves us with no moments of silence, with less time to ourselves, with a sense of diminished control over our lives ... People are analogue, not digital; biological, not mechanical. It is time for human-centered technology, a humane technology."

In addition the complexity of installing, managing and navigating today's software makes it difficult for new users to grasp the technology. "Today some 70% of the world's population are 'analogues', who are 'terrified by technology', and for whom the pain of technology 'is not just the time it takes to figure out new gadgets but the pain of feeling stupid at each moment along the way'”. I've observed these particular problems arise several times with my roommates, who can do the basics on computers, but found problem installing some software, network problems, etc and therefore I often had to help them.

There is also a common problem with things breaking, crashing and not working.
"15 years ago, they were spending 75% of their IT budget on new hardware and software and 25% on fixing the systems that they already had; now that ratio has been reversed—70-80% of IT spending goes on fixing things rather than buying new systems." If this statistic is correct, it seems rather difficult to see why software companies are allowed to keep releasing more and more complex software that fails and crashes more often. And why users buy into the promise of new software being more error-prone and less bugy.

Therefore it seems to me that we need better User Interfaces that incorporate research done on human and computer interaction. We need to do better testing of software, particularly having it run and be used for months by common users and fixing any problems that they could come across. And we need to be able to write more automated software that would not require unneeded input from users and would not be as intrusive in our lives as they are today.

What other ways or procedures can you suggest to simplify our technology?