The future is already here, just not very evenly distributed
Speaker: Steven Pemberton – Amsterdam, NetherlandsTopic(s): Society and the Computing Profession
Abstract
The future doesn't just suddenly happen. It comes creeping up on us,like an oil slick.
For instance, in 1991 the first web server went online; the Web wasn't an explosion: the internet already existed years before the web, and people were already transmitting and receiving files, and communicating over the internet.
Similarly, there were also already hypertext systems, though not connected to the internet. The web just joined the two together, and so wasn't a shock at the time, it just made life somewhat easier.
But for people who had seen neither internet nor hypertext, the web appeared amazing, that it must have been designed by a genius. Well,either that or people would moan that WWW really stood for "World Wide Wait" because it was so slow, or that it was just a passing fad, or that it was just for geeks.
But maybe the future *has* to come in small doses, so that people can accustom themselves to it, and when people say that something was 'ahead of its time', it just means that conditions weren't ready for it to be accepted.
This talk looks at the future that is today through a lens of yesterday, to see what, if any, lessons we can learn.
About this Lecture
Number of Slides: 45Duration: 45 minutes
Languages Available: Dutch, English
Last Updated:
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