“TRON came true,” says one of my geek friends, referencing the early 1980s film about a gamer played by Jeff Bridges who gets zapped into a digital universe inside the memory of a computer network. What my friend means is that today, entire populations are getting zapped into that digital universe. Avatars, auctions, blogs, social networks, and databases storing information about everything from bank accounts to medical records comprise primitive alter-egos that project our personalities and do our bidding — and if we command them to, they’ll do it while we’re walking the dog or drinking a Schlitz at the corner bar. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Xerox Parc’
GameChanger of the Month, May 2008
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008To J.S.B., Who Lives It
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
In the mythology of the Networked World, Xerox PARC was Camelot. And King Arthur was John Seely Brown.
Yesterday, my partner, Dr. Virginia Kuhn, and I saw ‘J.S.B.’ as he is widely known, speak at USC, where he is an Annenberg Fellow, about the conditions that led to the breakthrough work by the barefoot geeks at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) from the 1970s through the 90s. Much of what he talked about had a familiar ring, and not just because PARC is legendary. Turns out their work, and their culture, were highly improvisational in nature. I grokked it like crazy. (more…)