New Workforce - The Weblog of New Equities

Retro PC dreams

Remember Atari and Commodore? The Apple II and the original IBM PC (and its hapless successor, the PS/2)? Now, you can relive the TV commercials that sold us all on the dream of owning our own personal computer, thanks to the folks at Downloadsquad, who have meticulosly compiled them in one nostalgic post, "The history of the personal computer in TV commercials".

It's all here, including Apple's famous "1984" superbowl ad introducing the Mac, and the early IBM campaigns incongruously featuring a Chaplin lookalike. Plus, classic Microsoft ads ranging from the Rolling Stones to a bizarre performance by Microsoft's own Steve Ballmer hawking Windows 1.0. Not to be missed!

Hat tip: Pajamas Media and James Hudnall

"This is Unix, It's Easy"

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen offers an amusing take on the movie industry's 10 most egregious UI bloopers. You've seen them in film after film: the hero walks up to a completely strange (or even alien) computer console and, after guessing the password in 3 tries (the screen flashes "Access Granted" in overlarge characters), masters a complex user interface within seconds. In particular, Nielsen singles out one of the all-time great LOL moments for techies:

In the film Jurassic Park, a 12-year-old girl has to use the park's security system to keep everyone from being eaten by dinosaurs. She walks up to the control terminal and utters the immortal words, "This is a Unix system. I know this." And proceeds to (temporarily) save the day.

He also observes:

Films are littered with so many other unrealistic plot details: you'd imagine, for example, that the ability to shoot straight might actually be a primary job requirement of Imperial Stormtroopers.

Yes, it's just entertainment, Nielsen should just lighten up, etc. etc. But his actual point is how unrealistic depiction of technology in TV and films creates expecatations on the part of end-users, and whets the public's appetite for user interfaces that look dramatic and cool, but are not all that practical.

Now you see it...

According to the BBC, two scientists claim to have cracked the physics of a working Star Trek-style cloaking device -- albeit at present on a very small scale:

Nicolae Nicorovici and Graeme Milton propose that placing certain objects close to a material called a superlens could make them appear to vanish...

The complex mathematical phenomenon outlined by Milton and Nicorovici closes the gap a little between science fiction and fact.

The phenomenon is analogous to a tuning fork (which rings with a single sound frequency) being placed next to a wine glass. The wine glass will start to ring with the same frequency; it resonates.

The cloaking effect would exploit a resonance with light waves rather than sound waves.

The concept is at such a primitive stage that scientists are talking only at the moment of being able to cloak particles of dust - not spaceships.

First replicators, now this. Arthur C. Clarke, who claims the mantle of both scientist and science fiction author, once famously said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Perhaps he should have added, "or pop culture sci-fi".