[RioRico]

A few weeks ago I posted Corning Glass's vision of the digital future. Here is where Microsoft wants to take us (some of us, anyway):

Microsoft’s Vision Of The Future Includes Touch-Sensitive Everything (And Beautiful People Only) | TechCrunch

No one knows what the future will look like, but it’s always fun to guess, right? Microsoft has an entire position dedicated to the task, titled “Director of Envisioning,” which is held by David Jones. In an interview with GeekWire, he claimed that the future holds “an expanded definition of productivity where it’s not just about getting things done. It’s also about doing the right things, and doing them well and enjoying the process with other people in a very natural way.”

And that’s just what the sequel to Microsoft’s “Office 2019” video shows.

Productivity Future Vision (2011) - YouTube <== the video itself

[boriscleto]

What Micro$oft does best.....Vaporware.

[reeftool]

These ideas make for cool videos but not very practical. As society relies more and more on technology, they become more and more vulnerable to failures of that technology. We will continue to go that direction because electronic devices are much cheaper to manufacture than mechanical ones and less labor involved. It will be our downfall.

[boriscleto]

If Apple puts Siri on the iPad 3 they will have basically created John Sculley's Knowledge Navigator 25 years later.

You Tube

You Tube

[normhead]

John Sculley..... the tobacco marketing genius who broke the Apple product line into 36 different computers, almost all the same like branding different names for tobacco products? That John Sculley? The guy who single handedly almost killed Apple? I guess he should have been a science fiction writer.

[kenafein]

Everything will be a touch surface? Doesn't sound very hygienic.

[boriscleto]

John Sculley..... the tobacco marketing genius who broke the Apple product line into 36 different computers, almost all the same like branding different names for tobacco products? That John Sculley? The guy who single handedly almost killed Apple? I guess he should have been a science fiction writer.

Actually he was a carbonated sugar water salesman. He revived the "Choice of a New Generation" ad campaign at Pepsi and created the "Pepsi Challenge".

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Last edited by boriscleto; 10-28-2011 at 10:17 AM.

[boriscleto]

Everything will be a touch surface? Doesn't sound very hygienic.

You had to say that didn't you?

[RioRico]

If Apple puts Siri on the iPad 3 they will have basically created John Sculley's Knowledge Navigator 25 years later.

Ted Nelson conceptualized hyperlinks around 1959. Didn't get a product out until when, 1987? I saw him at a cybercon with James Burke and Tim Leary circa 1990. I think Ted's line was "There's a great gap between a clear vision and a straight path." Damn those intrusions of reality...

John Sculley..... the tobacco marketing genius who broke the Apple product line into 36 different computers, almost all the same like branding different names for tobacco products? That John Sculley? The guy who single handedly almost killed Apple? I guess he should have been a science fiction writer.

"MacBook works good like a home computer should."
"Us Lisa owners would rather fight than switch!"
"Howdy pardner, you're in Macintosh country."

Sure, tobacco marketing works fine with computer products. Better yet, the customers don't die-off as fast and don't need to see a Surgeon General's warning.

Everything will be a touch surface? Doesn't sound very hygienic.

In the bright world of the future, wee tiny nanobots will clean all surfaces for us so we can eat off the floor, just like the scrub-up details had to in the Don Valley Prison in Toronto. Or maybe it's a plot: M$oft, Apple, Corning, all in league with the Illuminati, intent upon infecting us all with behavior-mod microbes.

[boriscleto]

Ted Nelson conceptualized hyperlinks around 1959. Didn't get a product out until when, 1987? I saw him at a cybercon with James Burke and Tim Leary circa 1990. I think Ted's line was "There's a great gap between a clear vision and a straight path." Damn those intrusions of reality...

What about the NLS? Ted Nelson may have coined the term "hypertext", but Doug Engelbart actually did something with it. Then most of his team defected to PARC and created the Alto that inspired Steve Jobs who hired John Sculley who was the 14th worst CEO of all time. Sculley forced Jobs out, Jobs started NeXT and Tim Berners-Lee used a NeXT Cube to create the World Wide Web.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLS_(computer_system)

Doug's 1968 Demo*-*Doug Engelbart Institute

[RioRico]

What about the NLS? Ted Nelson may have coined the term "hypertext", but Doug Engelbart actually did something with it.

And that's the parallel. Just because you can conceptualize something, or can even write nice books and create nice videos about the conception, doesn't mean that you have what it takes to develop the idea. I'm still waiting for my atomic helicopter.

[kenafein]

We have what it takes to develop personal flying craft, big bro just doesn't want us to have them at the moment. They're still making a killing selling us the slightly revised horseless carriage over and over again. It's also a logistical and security nightmare. Still would be cheaper than building double decker freeways and upgrading other infrastructure though.

[Just1MoreDave]

If Microsoft can achieve this vision, their stock might rise to $32!

[normhead]

"There's a great gap between a clear vision and a straight path."

I think that's going to be my quote of the day.

[Wheatfield]

Sure, tobacco marketing works fine with computer products. Better yet, the customers don't die-off as fast and don't need to see a Surgeon General's warning.

With Mac fanboys, it seems like some parts of their brains do though (die off).