4 ms·
Alan Kay spoke about it length in many of his talks. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o Exce
by romaniv 10y ago
Alan Kay spoke about it length in many of his talks.
For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o
Excellent video. I highly recommend everyone working in or with IT to see it.
I think he is right.
PCs and smartphone are mostly recreating thing from the past, and not the best things either. However, this isn't because we invented everything there is to invent. It has more to do with how research in computing is currently funded and how companies approach invention and innovation.
- deepnotderp 10y agoMaking things smaller and power efficient IS invention, it's what has driven so much tech progress. Even supercomputers are a power problem now...
- romaniv 10y agoYou probably should watch that video. This is one of its core subject. Kay makes a valuable distinction between invention and innovation, and what you describe falls into the "innovation" bucket. It's incremental. Yes, our cellphones are more powerful than mainframes of the old, but do we utilize them to the same extent?
- kenjackson 10y agoBut aren't lasers incremental too?
- deepnotderp 10y agoSo are FinFETs, Quantum Wells, EUV lithography, compact linear accelerators and all the devices necessary for shrinking just "innovation"? What's "invention then"?
- debuggerpk 10y agoradio probably is invention .. various multiplexing techniques like TDMA, FDMA, CDMA are not ..