5 ms·

Clever and artful, with a little nostalgia thrown in. 1993 was the year I started my undergrad and would not see a "web browser" until the following year. It'

• puddintane 10y ago
  I was just doing that, when the girlfriend goes "oh I remember when the computer used to do that" - my response: "you had a virus then..." :D at least back then viruses had a bit of class to em
  • alanh 10y ago
    I had that virus on Windows 98SE.
• drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  Old timer here as well. The 'Virtual Girl' brings back memories of the 'personal assistant' fad from way back when. Funny how we've gone back to that now that the technology is more than a gimmick with Siri, Cortana, Alexa, and GNow. Sometimes I wonder about that peroid where so many things were possible (and tried!) but the technology and infrastructure just wasn't there to make it feasible. For all the lamenting about the loss of privacy, the reality is that assistants like these aren't possible without being able to dip into our emails and browse/purchase histories. That's something Bonzi Buddy couldn't do. We live in an odd time where the promises of the late 90s and early 2000's are coming to fruition. Suddenly VR is amazing and relatively affordable. Suddenly digital personal assistants are here and they work. The promise of a less powerful Microsoft is here and with IE a now discontinued product. Very fast internet is here with many markets having or will soon have 1gbps (note: the first LAN I worked on was 10mbps). The promise of early yet clunky smartphone/PDA revolution has also been fulfilled. I wonder if, from a networked/social/mobile computing, perspective that period was our 'Mother of All Demos.' So much was tried and promised back then and its only in the fast few years that its really practical.
  • UweSchmidt 10y ago
    A personal assistant may "dip into emails" but shouldn't phone home. Otherwise the personal assistant metaphor doesn't fit, and other, less pleasant descriptions apply.
    • drzaiusapelord 10y ago
      Your emails are already at 'home' or a similar cloud solution with questionable privacy policies. These assistants don't actually run on your device, just their front ends are run on your device. I think you're making a distinction that doesn't really exist with common use cases. As far as what is reported back to the home company, well, that pre-dates personal assistants. What gmail does with your email or dropbox with your files and any analysis your usage is a completely separate issue than personal assistants, aside from both of them having to do with privacy. It seems to me these assistants are just dipping into stuff 'home' has had access to for a decade plus. Instead of using that info to sell to marketers or whatever, its using that info to provide value to you by powering your assistant.
      • UweSchmidt 10y ago
        The email problem may be solved separately by a yet unknown solution - maybe encryption will be part of the next Iteration. "Personal assistants" that listen in on conversation, waiting for a keyword - that's a completely different dimension than "just" reading email.
        • drzaiusapelord 10y ago
          You can disable the 'always listening' option in most (all?) of these products and just have a press to talk option. I leave mine on for convenience. There's no law saying you need to if you want to use these technologies.
          • UweSchmidt 10y ago
            - defaults matter and shape behaviour/expectations - disabling these options is often difficult - other people's phones listen to me as well - ...
• Keyframe 10y ago
  and would not see a "web browser" until the following year Oh look, gopher with images. I can make that over a weekend!