Author: Alan Oppenheimer
-
2001: WiFi by any other name (part 2)
“Almost immediately, ‘wireless Internet’ took off in homes, businesses and coffee shops, here in Ashland and around the world.” Continuing where we left off, Apple’s 1999 “AirPort” was a big step in distributing the WiFi Future, but it wasn’t quite “wireless Internet” yet. It was wireless, but it wasn’t Internet. Not-so-coincidentally, in 1999 the city…
Written by
-
1999: WiFi by any other name (part 1)
Similar to the way we’ve almost come to take “Every movie ever made” for granted, we’ve come to take many of the technologies underlying this prophesy from 1999 for granted too. That same year, Apple again did its distribute-the-Future-much-more-widely thing with another now-taken-for-granted technology: WiFi. WiFi is so taken for granted now that we even…
Written by
-
1999: Every movie ever made
A few years after the prophetic AT&T “You Will” ad campaign, a regional phone and Internet provider, Qwest, did AT&T one better. A guy walks into a shabby motel lobby: “What kind of rooms you got?”Bored motel clerk: “King size.”Guy: “You got room service?”Clerk: “Donuts and coffee.”Guy: “Got entertainment?”Clerk: “All rooms have every movie ever…
Written by
-
2024: Predict, create, distribute (repeat)
A year ago this month, Apple again did what it does best: predicting, creating and distributing the Future. And we like to think we’ve been helping again too. As mentioned previously, Apple is particularly good at making an already-here, but very-unevenly-distributed Future more affordable and accessible for the rest of us. To quote Steve Jobs…
Written by
-
“The best way to predict the future is to create it”
A big reason that Gordon Moore was so accurately able to predict the future was that he was in the process of creating it, with his work at Intel. Same with William Gibson and his work with e-books and science fiction in general. Another futurist once said “The best way to predict the future is…
Written by