Early Visions As We May Think

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Early Visions - As We May Think

• James Landay Jason Hong
• Spring 2001
• January 25, 2001

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Outline

• Context - Computing in 1945
• A little about Vannevar Bush
• As We May Think
• For Next Week

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Context - Computing in 1945

• Harvard Mark I
• 55 feet long, 8 feet high, 5 tons

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Context - Computing in 1945

• Ballistics calculations
• Physical switches (before microproc)
• Paper tape
• Simple arithmetic and fixed calculations (before
  programs)
• 3 seconds to multiply

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Context - Computing in 1945

• First computer bug (Harvard Mark II)
• Grace Murray Hopper
• Physical nanoseconds

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A Little About Vannevar Bush

• Name rhymes with "Beaver"
• Faculty member MIT
• Coordinated WWII effort
  with 6000 US scientists
• Social contract for science
• Federal government funds universities
• Universities do basic research
• Research helps economy and national defense

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As We May Think

• Futuristic inventions / trends
• Wearable cameras for photographic records
• Encyclopedia Brittanica for a nickel
• Automatic transcripts of speech
• Memex
• Trails of discovery
• Direct capture of nerve impulses
• Which was your favorite?
• Which do you want (or don't want)?

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As We May Think
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As We May Think

• Very optimistic about future
• Technology could help society
• Technology could manage flood of info
• He was one of the most informed people of his
  time
• Look at trends, guess where we're going
• What was he right about? Wrong about?

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As We May Think

• Increased specialization
• Flood of information
• Faster / Cheaper / Smaller / More reliable
• Microphotography?
• Digital technologies?
• Non-science / Non-office apps?
• Memex?

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As We May Think

• Other questions
• How could these ideas be applied to the web?
• Smaller version of Memex? MemexPDA?
• Alternative interfaces to Memex?
• Is he overly optimistic about science?

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As We May Think

• Not so much predicting future as "inventing it"
  by publishing article
• Hypertext
• Wearable memory aid
• Use technology to augment human intellectual
  abilities
• New kinds of technology lead to new kinds of
  human/machine and human/human interaction
• Be aware that science/engineering can impact
  society

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As We May Think

• Computers weren't always like this
• Computers don't have to be like this!

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Summary

• Questions?
• Check email for cs39i-seminar email
• If you didn't get one sign up on mailing list
• It'll say "book-club" b/c of misconfig on my part
  )
• Yahoo club for discussion
• Next lecture on Early Visions (Part 2)
• read about Doug Engelbart - Tools for Thought Ch
  9 by Howard Rheingold (online)
• Interview with Engelbart (short optional)
• write up 1 paragraph review email to Jason