
Computer for the 21st Century (1991) [pdf] - dedalus
https://www.ics.uci.edu/~corps/phaseii/Weiser-Computer21stCentury-SciAm.pdf
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romwell
We are actively going towards this vision, although the closest we have now is
Alexa/Google Home/etc.

FTA:

>If a computer merely knows what room it is in...

It's 2019, and this isn't a solved problem yet, although there's work being
done on it.

~~~
coldtea
> _It 's 2019, and this isn't a solved problem yet_

One might argue it's not really a problem, more like a solution looking for a
problem (and bringing many problems of its own).

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barbecue_sauce
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1w9_cob_zw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1w9_cob_zw)

Compressed to all get out, but shows some accompanying visuals. There is
another version of this article with great photographs (the original from
Scientific American), but I can't seem to find it any more.

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pjc50
> "Today's multimedia machine makes the computer screen into a demanding focus
> of attention rather than allowing it to fade into the background.

> Perhaps most diametrically opposed to our vision is the notion of "virtual
> reality," which attempts to make a world inside the computer.

Some interesting implications for the "attention economy" here. Companies that
sell advertising aren't going to want to fade into the background. And indeed
one of the biggest, Facebook, is working on VR for this.

> My colleague Roy Want has designed a tab incorporating a small display that
> can serve simultaneously as an active badge, calendar and diary. It will
> also act as an extension to computer screens: instead of shrinking a program
> window down to a small icon on the screen, for example, a user will be able
> to shrink the window onto a tab display

More or less a direct mapping to the smartphone and smartwatch.

> The next step up in size is the pad, something of a cross between a sheet of
> paper and current laptop and palmtop computers. Bob Krivacic at PARC has
> built a prototype pad that uses two microprocessors, a workstation-sized
> display, a multi-button stylus, and a radio network that can potentially
> handle hundreds of devices per person per room

.. and this is the modern tablet. (In 1991 "workstation sized" displays could
well have still been 14"; we've now converged on laptops being about 13" as
well as the iPad Pro)

> One way to think of pads is as an antidote to windows

.. and indeed tablets started out without windows, and generally don't support
more than one window even now.

> Boards built by Richard Bruce and Scott Elrod at PARC currently measure
> about 40 by 60 inches and display 1024x768 black-and-white pixels.

Ah, the anti-retina display!

> Even today, although active badges and self-writing appointment diaries
> offer all kinds of convenience, in the wrong hands their information could
> be stifling. Not only corporate superiors or underlings, but overzealous
> government officials and even marketing firms could make unpleasant use of
> the same information that makes invisible computers so convenient

Still an unsolved problem.

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Aloha
Remarkably forward looking an accurate, except we still have Windows, X and
Unix.

~~~
dedalus
Yes. It will be a while before they disappear

~~~
gnulinux
Why should unix disappear?

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wapples
I like how this is hosted on ics.uci

zot zot zot

