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Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

blogs.forbes.com

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Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#71

Post by ggchappell »

dholowiski wrote: post #15

The next revolution is happening right now- it's consumer level 3d printers (cupcake, reprap etc) and they're going to change everything, more than computers and cell phones combined did.

The 3-D printing industry now, looks a lot like the computer industry around 1976, doesn't it? We have the equivalents of big expensive mainframes, as well as cheaper, but still pretty pricey, minicomputers. Cupcake & RepRap strike me as being analogous to something like the Altair 8800 or the Aim-65: fun for seriously geeky hobbyists, but not really ready for prime time.

So the 3-D printing industry doesn't have its Apple ][ / Pet / TRS-80 yet. In the computer industry, back in '76, those were only a year away. And then in 5 years there was the IBM PC, in 6 years the Commodore 64, and in 8 years the Macintosh, and suddenly these little machines were everywhere.

Is 3-D printing going to advance that quickly? I doubt it. The technical challenges, and especially the price issues, look pretty tricky. I do think we'll get there before too long, though. It should be interesting to watch.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#72

Post by gaius »

DannoHung wrote: post #62
gaius wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha yes, even Star Trek, they can travel at warp speed but the away team can't send an MMS back to the ship, the captain has to beam down personally and see for himself...

Uhhh.... http://www.google.com/images?q=Trek+communicator&um=1&#3...

What am I looking at here? The Star Trek communicators are voice-only.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#73

Post by _b8r0 »

Some very smart people here have mentioned mobile phones. Some other smart people have made the point that the original mobile phones predate the Apple II. Indeed, car phones go back way far in history but have more in common (historically) with radios.

There are three revolutionary things about mobile phones that came after the Apple II:

SMS (1984/5)

GPRS (1997)

The ubiquity of mobile phones (late 90s to mid 2000s) with data services.

The technology itself is rarely revolutionary (although developers of HIV treatment drugs may disagree - this also came after the Apple II). The thing that makes it revolutionary is what happens when it reaches ubiquity. Mobile phones with data used to be amazing things. I still remember using a Nokia Communicator for the first time, over an incredible 9.6k link from almost anywhere with GSM coverage. These days your average person in the street probably couldn't tell you whether they were on GSM, HSPDA or Wifi (my wife certainly can't, other than sometimes her phone goes 'slow'). That's what's revolutionary about mobile phones, that they're no longer magical and part of everyone's day.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#74

Post by rbanffy »

gaius wrote: post #64
InclinedPlane wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is even sillier in the case of Star Trek since they could use even a Polaroid or film camera and beam the film/photos back up to the ship (or, of course, a data crystal or what-have-you).

Beaming Polaroids back to the ship would be amazing!

That's silly. Everybody knows the transporter messes up Polaroid film.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#75

Post by rbanffy »

astrofinch wrote: post #33
mattmaroon wrote: post #20

This clearly shows that being very wise and being very intelligent are not the same thing.

I'm not sure that being the best chess player in the world is evidence that Kasparov is very intelligent--any more than being the best poker player, the best piano player, or even the best marketer. Chess is a learned skill just like any of those. Put another way, looking at all of the world's very most intelligent people, the fraction that care enough about chess to become the world champion if they had the aptitude…

Actually, computers have demonstrated over and over that you don't have to be intelligent to be a brilliant chess player.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#76

Post by rbanffy »

jesus wrote: post #53
mpk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The how is of course the tricky part, but as to the why - well, to quote George Mallory, "Because it's there" That's good enough for me, but there are plenty of other reasons why. Species survival would be one of them. There are plenty of possibilities for extinction events right here. Super-volcano eruptions, radical climate change, polar shifting, airborne super-bugs (hello zombie apocalypse!), nuclear mayhem, etc.…

Earth serves as an effective spacecraft, we're just running low on supplies and making a mess of it; the economically and ecologically optimal move is migrate mining and industry to heaven.

Still, if we can get a couple more spacecrafts, the chance of everyon dying gets much smaller.

Not only that, but the skills and knowledge we gain with it make us even harder to kill. One of these days we may even surpass cockroaches.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#78

Post by rbanffy »

johngalt wrote: post #37

We went from basic monochrome computers that could barely hold the text of a single book in memory to having instantaneous access to the sum of human knowledge from a device that fits in your pocket. Perhaps my definition of revolutionary is different than his.

The Apple ][ had color, you insensitive clod.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#79

Post by fleitz »

fhars wrote: post #68
simonsarris wrote: post #2

It's rare I want to call someone with conservative technological estimates unrealistic. Usually I see the opposite. But I don't think Kasparov is on the mark here. The cellphone was invented after that and has forever changed the way we reach people and fundamentally how they are reachable. Do you remember life pre-cellphones? When you left your house you literally dropped off the map. There was no way of anyone know…

You've got your chronology wrong, the cell phone was introduced 1973 (that's why the OpenMoko device was called Neo 1973), predating the Apple ][ by four years.

The cell phone was not invented in 1973, that thing Michael Douglas carries around in Wall Street is called a brick.
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