Jan 19, 2008

From DynaBook 1972 to XO 2008

Alan Kay's paper "A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages" from 1972 has just been mentioned in the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) news forum: "I just came across this amazingly insightful paper by genius Alan Kay detailing his vision of the 'DynaBook' something that took more than 30 years to finally becoming a reality in the form of the XO."

Jan 11, 2008

Ultra Mobile PC

UMPC - a vision video by intel: 3 minutes 6 minutes See mprove: HCI Vision Videos for more.

Jan 8, 2008

Joe Weizenbaum in Linz, 2007


Joseph Weizenbaum at MEDICHI 2007
Originally uploaded by mprove

Klagenfurt Campus TV recorded the keynote from Mike Mahoney What Makes the History of Software Hard and Why it Matters, the read-out talk for Niklaus Wirth A Brief History of Software Engineering, Tibor Vamos' presentation Nothing is More Practical than a Good Theory, and Joseph Weizenbaum's closing keynote Social and political impact of the long term history of computing at MEDICHI 2007.
Watch the videos here.
Find more videos at mprove: webcasts.
PS: Happy birthday Joe, to your 85th birthday today!

Jan 3, 2008

Lessons to learn from Newton's failure

No one would defeat that Apple's iPod is a new lifestyle device that became a tremendous success in the market. Yet, the success of the iPhone is not a given; esp. if you keep in mind the failure of Apple's Newton a decade ago. Read more about the Newton in RoughlyDrafted (Dec 2006): Newton Lessons for Apple's New Platform.

Jan 1, 2008

human reason

Image of Computer power and human reason According to Joe Weizenbaum, the single most important paragraph of his book Computer Power and Human Reason is the following on page 276:
It is a widely held but a grievously mistaken belief that civil courage finds exercise only in the context of world-shaking events. To the contrary, its most arduous exercise is often in those small contexts in which the challenge is to overcome the fears induced by petty concerns over career, over our relationships to those who appear to have power over us, over whatever may disturb the tranquility of our mundane existence.
I met Joe at MEDICHI in Klagenfurt last year. A great moment where he touched me.