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Nightline Interview with Steve Jobs (1981) [video]

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Re: Nightline Interview with Steve Jobs (1981) [video]

#31

Post by chubot »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #29
jakobegger wrote: post #9

What I find impressive is how confident Steve Jobs was in 1981 that soon everyone would have a computer -- just like in 2007, he was confident that everyone would soon have a smartphone. I wasn't around in 1981, but I know that in 2007 that wasn't a popular opinion. People talked about the "smartphone market" as if it would stay a fraction of the general phone market. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that computers…

Augmented reality will be a part of everyday life.

It will take awhile from the breakthrough to when it becomes part of everyday life.

The internet was around for a decade or more before the web. The web was the breakthrough required for mass adoption -- rich media over the network. Also ubiquitous PCs were necessary.

I argue that the internet didn't become part of every day life until 2004 or so. I've been on the web since 93, and am a programmer, but in 2002 I went a whole summer without internet access because I was subletting a room without it.

Before 2004 or so, the web was really for looking up stuff. After Facebook and MySpace, "life" started happening on the internet. The nightly news would report things that happened on Twitter.

So I'd say that augmented reality hasn't had its www moment yet, and after that it may take a decade or more to become part of every day life. Really adoption is a social issue, so what needs to happen is that the old generation dies.

That said, Snapchat might later be viewed as the precursor to AR, and it has wide usage. It might be that generation or the next.

Re: Nightline Interview with Steve Jobs (1981) [video]

#32

Post by ransom1538 »

coldtea wrote: post #26
jakobegger wrote: post #9

What I find impressive is how confident Steve Jobs was in 1981 that soon everyone would have a computer -- just like in 2007, he was confident that everyone would soon have a smartphone. I wasn't around in 1981, but I know that in 2007 that wasn't a popular opinion. People talked about the "smartphone market" as if it would stay a fraction of the general phone market. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that computers…

> What are the revolutionary things that are starting right now that will be obvious in retrospect? The decline of the middle class and a new developed world of low wage working slaves straight out of Dickens / Hugo?

upvote.

Re: Nightline Interview with Steve Jobs (1981) [video]

#33

Post by tyingq »

jakobegger wrote: post #9

What I find impressive is how confident Steve Jobs was in 1981 that soon everyone would have a computer -- just like in 2007, he was confident that everyone would soon have a smartphone. I wasn't around in 1981, but I know that in 2007 that wasn't a popular opinion. People talked about the "smartphone market" as if it would stay a fraction of the general phone market. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that computers…

>>What are the revolutionary things that are starting right now that will be obvious in retrospect?

You could make a good case for the internet turning into something more like AOL or cable tv. Net neutrality going away, search engines preferring to show their own content, DRM going into browsers, various monopolies forming up, etc. At the very least, what's usable on the internet might be different depending on your path in. You'll have the iPhone internet, the Comcast internet, and so forth.

Not a great development, but there's probably money to be made in there somewhere.

Re: Nightline Interview with Steve Jobs (1981) [video]

#34

Post by audunw »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #11
jakobegger wrote: post #9

What I find impressive is how confident Steve Jobs was in 1981 that soon everyone would have a computer -- just like in 2007, he was confident that everyone would soon have a smartphone. I wasn't around in 1981, but I know that in 2007 that wasn't a popular opinion. People talked about the "smartphone market" as if it would stay a fraction of the general phone market. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that computers…

Hydrogen fuel cells. Elon Musk is talking them down like Steve Jobs talked down native apps in favor of a web app.

That would assume that hydrogen is a superior fuel. It's not. It's much less efficient than batteries and worse than hydrocarbons in every way except for CO2. But CO2 is not a problem if the hydrocarbons just isn't from fossils.

In an abstract way: we are all part of a gigantic hydrocarbon economy. We are carbon based life forms, we're everything absorbs and emits CO2. We need hydrocarbons for almost everything we make. Why would we create a new hydrogen economy? Does it have any use except for energy storage?

Elon Musk is sceptical because he thinks about the fundamental physics behind technology.

Hydrogen is a gimmick which plays on a knee-jerk reaction against CO2, and a very short sighted view which assumes the that batteries won't get better or that we won't get efficient fuel cells for hydrocarbons and CO2 neutral production (while assuming a breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cells).

If you want to predict the future, you have to consider physics, not what's cool (the exhaust is water! )

Re: Nightline Interview with Steve Jobs (1981) [video]

#35

Post by noir_lord »

chubot wrote: post #31
ClassyJacket wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Augmented reality will be a part of everyday life.

It will take awhile from the breakthrough to when it becomes part of everyday life. The internet was around for a decade or more before the web. The web was the breakthrough required for mass adoption -- rich media over the network. Also ubiquitous PCs were necessary. I argue that the internet didn't become part of every day life until 2004 or so. I've been on the web since 93, and am a programmer, but in 2002 I went…

> The internet was around for a decade or more before the web.

Though the definition is fuzzy the Internet traces it's roots back to the 60's, specifically the first connection between two machines on arpanet was 1969.

1981 (a decade before the web) did see a big exapansion but there where already several hundred machines talking to each other by then.

Re: Nightline Interview with Steve Jobs (1981) [video]

#36

Post by JustSomeNobody »

jakobegger wrote: post #9

What I find impressive is how confident Steve Jobs was in 1981 that soon everyone would have a computer -- just like in 2007, he was confident that everyone would soon have a smartphone. I wasn't around in 1981, but I know that in 2007 that wasn't a popular opinion. People talked about the "smartphone market" as if it would stay a fraction of the general phone market. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that computers…

Computers and smartphones got popular because anyone could write and sell an app for it which then fed into the loop of everyone else needing and wanting them. Look for ideas that are like that; something that can be built off of.

Re: Nightline Interview with Steve Jobs (1981) [video]

#37

Post by bamboozled »

The fears about citizens privacy being severely eroded came true! Steve was speaking more like an ideaologist / optimist than a pragmatist, but I believe his intentions were sound.

It seems generations (young and old), never became computer literate to the level Steve anticipated. Personal computing access quickly outgrew computer literacy in the time frame required to stop societal damage being done.

The majority of users have become passive consumers and not free spirited, well rounded, democratically inclined, creative types that fit go with Steve's vision and observations.

Hindsight is 20/20 though and one can't blame them, who could've predicted the rapid PC uptake plus the Internet of 2017 back then?

Re: Nightline Interview with Steve Jobs (1981) [video]

#38

Post by fgrimes »

tim333 wrote: post #20
extrastitial wrote: post #8

Just as fascinating as Steve Jobs’ comments are the prescient privacy concerns voiced by David Burnham. Incredible that over 35 years ago, the impact of computers on civil liberties was already in public discussion.

The impact of computers on civil liberties predates that by decades https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/29/humanities.hig...

Probably predates computers, if you look back far enough.

Re: Nightline Interview with Steve Jobs (1981) [video]

#39

Post by aswanson »

superplussed wrote: post #14
jakobegger wrote: post #9

What I find impressive is how confident Steve Jobs was in 1981 that soon everyone would have a computer -- just like in 2007, he was confident that everyone would soon have a smartphone. I wasn't around in 1981, but I know that in 2007 that wasn't a popular opinion. People talked about the "smartphone market" as if it would stay a fraction of the general phone market. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that computers…

In 1981 I'm not sure that it was so obvious that computers would take over the world, definitely not to the general public. For context, I was 10 years old at the time, and was the only kid in my school that owned a computer, a TI-99 that used a cassette drive as storage. It was so left-of-field to own a computer, that I remember not even really talking about it to my friends in school, because they had no context fo…

You're approximately 2 years older than me. Fast forward to the Commodore Christmas of 1985. Pretty much everyone I knew got a C_64 that year.Things changed quickly.

Re: Nightline Interview with Steve Jobs (1981) [video]

#40

Post by paulddraper »

coldtea wrote: post #24
paulddraper wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For pedestrian uses, yes. But it could be used in more specialized applications that already require a lot of attention. E.g. commerical airplanes.

That's not really life or industry changing though.

Depends on your life or industry.
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