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Here’s a more full account of the Western Union and Bell settlement on patent infringement- http://oldtelephones.com/blog/2012/04/25/bell-telephone--western-un

Here’s a more full account of the Western Union and Bell settlement on patent infringement- http://oldtelephones.com/blog/2012/04/25/bell-telephone--western-union-patent-agreement-of-1879/ http://oldtelephones.com/blog/2012/04/25/bell-telephone--wes... I’m also generally skeptical of revisionist narratives. People often say no one saw X coming, no one saw apps on a phone or a screen with buttons etc etc. But it seems hundreds or thousands of writers, designers, futurists, failed technologists and so on did predict these things. The hard part is building them and then creating a system (eg financed hardware) to create widespread adoption.

jerf 7y ago
This went by on HN a week or so ago: https://www.gwern.net/Timing https://www.gwern.net/Timing I tend to agree, the problem isn't seeing what's coming exactly (though that is non-trivial). The problem is the timing.
mywittyname 7y ago
> People often say no one saw X coming, no one saw apps on a phone or a screen with buttons etc etc. But it seems hundreds or thousands of writers, designers, futurists, failed technologists and so on did predict these things. Often technologies are available long before they ever catch on with the mainstream. There were several PDAs sold in the 90s, and at least one had a built-in telephone. The Buick Reatta had a touch screen center stack in the late 1980s. Technology adoption is weird. There needs to be the perfect storm of integration, marketing, and (for lack of a better term) zeitgeist to really make something mainstream. And even with all those things, it still takes YEARS to really get there. Think about how long techies were downloading TV shows/movies before streaming really took off -- Windows Media Center came out in 2002! That's a full six years before Netflix started its streaming service, which itself took several years to take off.

jerf 7y ago

This went by on HN a week or so ago: https://www.gwern.net/Timing https://www.gwern.net/Timing I tend to agree, the problem isn't seeing what's coming exactly (though that is non-trivial). The problem is the timing.

mywittyname 7y ago

> People often say no one saw X coming, no one saw apps on a phone or a screen with buttons etc etc. But it seems hundreds or thousands of writers, designers, futurists, failed technologists and so on did predict these things. Often technologies are available long before they ever catch on with the mainstream. There were several PDAs sold in the 90s, and at least one had a built-in telephone. The Buick Reatta had a touch screen center stack in the late 1980s. Technology adoption is weird. There needs to be the perfect storm of integration, marketing, and (for lack of a better term) zeitgeist to really make something mainstream. And even with all those things, it still takes YEARS to really get there. Think about how long techies were downloading TV shows/movies before streaming really took off -- Windows Media Center came out in 2002! That's a full six years before Netflix started its streaming service, which itself took several years to take off.