4 ms·

Gates may have been referring to a greatly-hyped 1990s mobile startup called (coincidentally?) General Magic, who promised software agents which could do things

by flomo 12y ago

Gates may have been referring to a greatly-hyped 1990s mobile startup called (coincidentally?) General Magic, who promised software agents which could do things like book flights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic

nostrademons 12y ago
Ironically, a number of General Magic alumni have gone on to found companies that deliver on parts of the general promise, eg. Andy Rubin of Android ("talk to your phone and get any answers you want"), Tony Fadell of Nest ("tell your thermostat about the comfortable home you want"), and Pierre Omidyar of E-Bay ("tell the Internet what obscure item you want").
frik 12y ago
Bill Gates's vision was about a "wallet PC", "information highway" and software based "personal agents". You can think of smartphone with BitCoin wallet, 3G web connection, Siri meets Watson. He hoped Microsoft's "pen-based computing" (later Pocket-PC/WinCE) would get traction. Microsoft Bob (from Gates wife) and Office agents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant) flopped. The Microsoft Network 1.0 (short MSN 1.0) integrated in Windows 95 (was a serious Web competitor based on Win32 controls and Explorer as browser instead of HTML and Mosaic/Internet Explorer 1) flopped. The second edition of the book features the Internet/web instead of "information highway". Bill Gates vision can be seen in the Comdex 1995 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxeY-OchwY&feature=youtu.be&t=1m59s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxeY-OchwY&feature=youtu.be... (shows the "wallet PC") General Magic was definitely a competitor. AT&T was on the General Magic bandwagon, see their TV ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8 (triva: Jenna Elfman of Dharma & Greg in her first role in 0:48)

by flomo 12y ago

nostrademons 12y ago

Ironically, a number of General Magic alumni have gone on to found companies that deliver on parts of the general promise, eg. Andy Rubin of Android ("talk to your phone and get any answers you want"), Tony Fadell of Nest ("tell your thermostat about the comfortable home you want"), and Pierre Omidyar of E-Bay ("tell the Internet what obscure item you want").

frik 12y ago

Bill Gates's vision was about a "wallet PC", "information highway" and software based "personal agents". You can think of smartphone with BitCoin wallet, 3G web connection, Siri meets Watson. He hoped Microsoft's "pen-based computing" (later Pocket-PC/WinCE) would get traction. Microsoft Bob (from Gates wife) and Office agents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant) flopped. The Microsoft Network 1.0 (short MSN 1.0) integrated in Windows 95 (was a serious Web competitor based on Win32 controls and Explorer as browser instead of HTML and Mosaic/Internet Explorer 1) flopped. The second edition of the book features the Internet/web instead of "information highway". Bill Gates vision can be seen in the Comdex 1995 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxeY-OchwY&feature=youtu.be&t=1m59s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxeY-OchwY&feature=youtu.be... (shows the "wallet PC") General Magic was definitely a competitor. AT&T was on the General Magic bandwagon, see their TV ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8 (triva: Jenna Elfman of Dharma & Greg in her first role in 0:48)