Month: March 2026
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So Far: Looking back 50 years ago from 40 years ago
In preparation for the 50th anniversary of Apple’s founding, which will be this Wednesday, April 1, we went into our personal archives to uncover a book Apple wrote 40 years ago to celebrate its 10th anniversary. “So Far: The First Ten Years of a Vision” was given out to Apple employees in 1987 to commemorate…
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Spring Forward
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, today is the first full day of Spring, with the earth’s tilt sideways to the sun, and day and night equal everywhere. Humanity has, for thousands of years, used calendars to keep track of the Past, Present, and Future. The basics of the world’s most popular calendar were laid down…
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Behind the Future: Bell Labs
A recent article in the New York Times, Inside the Birthplace of Your Favorite Technology, provides an overview of some of the major contributions to the Future that AT&T’s Bell Labs research facility has made over the past century. Not given as much credit as Apple, Xerox, and others for its Future contributions, New Jersey…
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Left Behind on Purpose: The Light Bulb?
More surprising than the planned obsolescence of analog TV was the planned obsolescence of the light bulb. The light bulb? Yes, the incandescent light bulb. Invented by Thomas Edison in 1879, light bulb technology remained essentially unchanged for over a century. Fluorescent lighting became popular in businesses, but households continued to use Edison’s technology well…
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Left Behind on Purpose: TV
Many technologies are left behind as an accidental side-effect of the adoption of newer technologies. For instance the decline of the post office. Or “video killed the radio star.“ But some technologies are left behind intentionally, often with a very complex planning cycle to do so. In the 1990s it became clear that there was…
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