You only have to look at WiReD Magazine from those times (ca. 1993-2000) to appreciate how different the zeitgeist was during the personal computing revolution.

You only have to look at WiReD Magazine from those times (ca. 1993-2000) to appreciate how different the zeitgeist was during the personal computing revolution. Everything was changing and anything was possible. Personally I think it's not because we were working on great new tech products then. I think it's because we knew we were at the forefront on a tsunami of a tech sea change of historic proportions that was obviously reinventing much of everyday life in ways we didn't yet understand, from the global public commons to the local grocery store. The question on everyone's lips was, where will it end? What's happening? Where is the world going next? And can I play? Then from 2005 to maybe 2012 we saw an apparent renewal of tectonic forces as mobile smartphones surged forth and all of us became incessantly and globally interconnected. But now, in today's hindsight, we've had some time to get perspective, and we're disappointed. Where was that brave new world we were promised? We've gained tweets, social and news feeds, e-books and e-tail, and handheld GPS. But we've never been more aware of how meaninglessly trivial tech's ultimate tsunami -- small talk, or how thoroughly manipulated we've let ourselves be by corporations whose highest calling is to sell us ever more trumped-up commodities and ever greater dependency on their latest bit-of-the-nonce drug fix. O where have you gone, Gene Roddenberry?