2 ms·

It's like they got the concepts right, but the execution extraordinarily wrong. I'm pretty glad I don't have a house that yells "COOKING PERIOD IS OVER" at me

• extrahoad 12y ago
  I'll counter and say I think they got everything right, including execution. I just think you're ignoring the cultural context. If you went back to the 90's and showed a concept video featuring pervasive personalization based on data mining, no-UI uis, and things that just work, people would see fever dreams at best and unwholesome value-destroying privacy-invading witchcraft at worst, the brand of which informed science fiction of the time. I don't think the iPhone would have sold back then. But if you gave them the flashy stuff in this concept video, Microsoft would have been Google and Apple combined.
  • csixty4 12y ago
    > people would see fever dreams at best and unwholesome value-destroying privacy-invading witchcraft at worst Oh yes. The hacker subculture, even parts of the tech industry in general at the time was dealing with things like the Clipper Chip, the V-Chip, and Operation Sundevil. There was a love of tech, but a good dose of distrust as well. There was also a certain aesthetic to 90s tech. It needed to be obnoxious and tech-looking. Well, everything needed to be obnoxious & in-your-face in the 90s.