Steve Jobs Prediction's Relevance to our Board

[twacowfca]

Steve Jobs & Aristotle

 

FROM --Steve Jobs interview: Feb.1, 1985

 

Obviously, one of the great challenges of an education is to teach us how to think. What we're finding is that computers are actually going to affect the quality of thinking as more and more of our children have these tools available to them.

 

Humans are tool users. What's really incredible about a book is that you can read what Aristotle wrote. You don't have to have some teacher's interpretation of Aristotle. You can certainly get that, but you can read exactly what Aristotle wrote. That direct transmission of thoughts and ideas is one of the key building blocks of why we are where we are, as a society. But the problem with a book is that you can't ask Aristotle a question. I think one of the potentials of the computer is to somehow ... capture the fundamental, underlying principles of an experience.

 

Here's a very crude example. The original video game, Pong, captured the pinciples of gravity, angular momentum and things like that, to where each game obeyed those underlying principles, and yet every game was different -- sort of like life.

 

That's the simplest example. And what computer programming can do is to capture the underlying principles, the underlying essence, and then facilitate thousands of experiences based on that perception of the underlying principles. Now, what if we could capture Aristotle's world view -- the underlying principles of his world view? Then you could actually ask Aristotle a question. OK. You might say it would not be exactly what Aristotle was. It could be all wrong. But maybe not. . . . .

 

[Parsad]

I'm going to miss this guy when he's gone!  Hopefully he gets better.  Cheers!

[turar]

This is somewhat related, which I found interesting and amusing. In 1987, Apple held a competition among college students on the design of the computer of the future. The winning team's design now looks a lot like an iPad.

 

Details:

http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/5/10/project-2000-apple-computer-1988.html

 

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19880008883_1988008883.pdf

[twacowfca]

Oops!  Many thanks to txlaw for posting the full Jobs interview on the general discussion section.

[beerbaron]

This is somewhat related, which I found interesting and amusing. In 1987, Apple held a competition among college students on the design of the computer of the future. The winning team's design now looks a lot like an iPad.

 

Details:

http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/5/10/project-2000-apple-computer-1988.html

 

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19880008883_1988008883.pdf

 

Funny, talk about inventions hitting the market at the right time... 20 years later!

 

Wasn't there also a sort of iPad apple tried to launch in the past that was a total failure?

 

BeerBaron

[merkhet]

Are you talking about the old Apple Newton?

[beerbaron]

Yes I think so.

 

 

[twacowfca]

Quite a learning curve!  The Newton into the iPad and going way back The clunky, slow, bulky, overpriced Lisa morphing into the first Mac under a dedicated team led by Jobs to address all its faults.

[DCG]

You guys should check out the book 'The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs'. Outstanding book for anyone remotely interested in technology and business.