week 4 : 24 october
diffusion of innovation
Highlights From Student Posts[back to week 4 ]
- Barrie
- My own looking-glass is a bit opaque. I expect that Bush, like I do, would think that so much has changed in the world of computing that the new frontiers of science are elsewhere, probably in genetics.
- Belle
- Nowadays there are four main parts in home digital industry. May I mention in the beginning, I think the next main market in digital industry should be the digital at home. The four aspects might be entertainment, learning, communication, and life management. They can also extent into multimedia home video, learning online, in-time messenger and VOIP, and digital censorship and digital household appliances. Cable will no more only use in TV but the most important resource in every household.
- Nowadays there are four main parts in home digital industry. May I mention in the beginning, I think the next main market in digital industry should be the digital at home. The four aspects might be entertainment, learning, communication, and life management. They can also extent into multimedia home video, learning online, in-time messenger and VOIP, and digital censorship and digital household appliances. Cable will no more only use in TV but the most important resource in every household.
- Chloe
- Group 1
- Courtney
- Bush nearly passes the Nostradamus test, with his estimations of “dry photography (digital media?)” and the match-book sized encyclopedia. At least in the US, the public library system has put one of those at most fingertips. The author was correct in predicting the emphasis on compression, and making things smaller, cleaner.
- As we go through Wilson and his extensive list of innovations, it is evident that many scientists have had a feeling of hesitancy when letting go of a brilliant idea. They all run to the patent office! Is that idea of protection still prevalent today?
- Second, there is an iteration of Vannevar’s concern of specialization. This is the point that I was trying to make in class last week, in terms of new discovery and development. There are fewer new platform changes, and more fine-tuning adjustments to old products... It may be that we are at that point where the top of the hill is no longer in sight because we are standing on top of it.
- Elina
- Group 1
- Jeanne
- I found myself thinking of technology as a tree, where each ring was a new technology. I use this metaphor because without the previous rings, the new ring could not grow. The chapter mentioned the railroad, maybe not something I would have thought to be connected to technological development, but other ideas and innovations in communications technology were brought to life in-part because of it. I don't think there is any one comunications technology that can stand alone without those previous "rings" to support it. There is a technological core, that new innovations and development build upon.
- Kai-Chen
- I think that computing power makes “global village” possible, it shortens the distances among people, makes us more independent, and people can also connect to other people more speedily.
- Kevin
- The importance of computing power to communications, while mechanical in nature - pushing binary code through instantaneously, reflects the continuing dimunition of the dimensions of time and space. Computing allows the underlying algorithms of communications to be limited only by the speed of the processor. Verizon is embarked upon a multi-year effort to redo its network completely in fiber-optics. Given the physical properties of glass, the only limitation will be the electronics at transmitting end and, to a lesser, degree the electronics at the termination point. This simply means that in the future where a fiber-optic network exists, light will carry all information from start to finish. It's clear that between the light spectrum and the speed of light on the side of a communications network, the idea of instant access will become a reality.
- Bush, more the visionary than the pessimist, today would likely see the capabilities of nanotechnology and 'riding the light' with communications taking us to new heights, despite the obvious potential for more lethal weapons and inhumane treatment of one another.
- Kristina
- When I visited my grandparents as a child, I would stand outside my grandpa’s office door and listen as he said into his radio, "N7DKY, this is N7DKY, do you read me?" My grandpa was a "ham," an amateur radio enthusiast. I remember staring up in awe at the tower in the backyard, thinking how amazing it was that my grandpa could talk to people so far away because of that tower.
- Luke
- I saw a video interview on cnn the other day with steve wozniak. he had a small black box and pressed a button and a laser - projected, fully functioning keyboard appeared on the desk in front of him.
-
Magnus
- no post
- Mini
- Group 1
- Nancy
- This explains precisely why the Internet has been so powerful, and why traditional institutions such as governments (think porn and gambling regulations in the U.S., or ongoing Chinese efforts at political suppression) and corporations (think entertainment conglomerate efforts to protect their content--i.e. profits--to squish Napster and YouTube) have been largely unsuccessful at controlling it to date. The Internet is headless; no entity has the overarching ability to direct it.
- Nika
- I think all techonology that helps keep people connected is a good thing. I just worry that the negative impact it leaves is bigger than the positive. Even though people can all easily find a community online and have someone to talk to, I think it would be better for them to learn how to communicate and have an actual community. If technology increases in communication, I am afraid it will make communication so short and easy, we will loose a lot in the proccess.
- Randa
- I think he already has forcasted for the next 50 years, it will become more and more closely integrated with the individual. The machine will become part of us (Borg/StarTrek versus head jacks on cell phones now-one step removed). Or as communication becomes more public, we will exchange pills of communication like in Aeon Flux instead of exchanging e-mail. (Designing the machine that would facilitate THAT, would be interesting!).
- (Check out the visuals!)
- Rex
- Hoping
to come up with new ideas, my time is spent devouring stories about new
products, watching people use the internet, and scribbling little prototypes.
I've spent over a decade trying to design products for what people will
do next on the internet. And yet, despite years of consideration, I still
believe that I know little more than most people about what the Next Big
Thing will be. Or, to put it another way, I think everyone knows approximately what
the next big thing will be, but only a select few will create exactly what
it looks like.
1) We don't always know what exactly an innovation will be used for, but consensus seems to arise around the potential of innovative products.
2) The trajectory is usually right, but the velocity is usually wrong. That is, we tend to know the direction an innovation will take us, but we're bad at determining how fast it will get there.
- Hoping
to come up with new ideas, my time is spent devouring stories about new
products, watching people use the internet, and scribbling little prototypes.
I've spent over a decade trying to design products for what people will
do next on the internet. And yet, despite years of consideration, I still
believe that I know little more than most people about what the Next Big
Thing will be. Or, to put it another way, I think everyone knows approximately what
the next big thing will be, but only a select few will create exactly what
it looks like.
-
Stephanie
- f looking toward the next 50 years he would likely forecast more uses of scientific capabilities that help keep records faster, smaller, and more accessible to the human...something the size of a peanut that has all the capabilities of a man’s brain? He might advocate or attempt to inspire more valued everyday uses for war technologies.
- Steve
- Group 1
- Tony (Fu-Yuan)
- when I used google to find who Vannevar Bush is, I found his career is so brilliant. As we may think was the great work at that time and he predicted many inventions that have really appeared now, such as personal computer, internet, World Wibe Web, and even Wikipedia.
- That is, in the future, there will be no personal computer. It doesn't mean that people don't need computer anymore, but they gather all data of personal computer all over the world into a big main computer.
- Vaun
- In chapters two and three of Media, Technology & Society Winston does a good job of illustrating how much more complex the process of invention is than we tend to assume. I wasn’t sure where he was going with all the technical details, but he certainly gave me an impression of a bumbling, stumbling, confusing process out of which the telephone somehow managed to emerge.
- I am a backward-thinking guy, so I drew this cartoon, showing how cell
phones might have looked if they were introduced in the early 1900s.