Jon Gordon– Download MP3 – iTunes On today’s show I visit the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda, CA. Photo courtesy of Pacific Pinball Museum
Future Tense
MPR News Chronicling the social impact of technology
History
This humble technology report first aired way back in 1996. What was going on that year? Apple Computer was in a tailspin, digital cameras were too expensive for the masses, and this thing called the Internet was just starting to emerge outside the techiest of circles.
Today we look back at a few stories we covered in the earliest days of Future Tense.
As a piece of design work it’s elegant, useful, long-lasting but always finding new life.
It’s the @ symbol, which we use all the time in e-mail, and most recently on Twitter.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York thinks so highly little ole’ @ that it’s adding it to its permanent collection.
Guest: Paola Antonelli, MoMA
– Download MP3 – iTunes It’s probably not on your calendar but tomorrow is Ada Lovelace Day. It’s an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of Lovelace, and those of all women in science and technology today. Guests: Jennifer Bohmbach of EightShapes; Meghan Wilker and Nancy Lyons of Geek Girls Guide and Clockwork
Part 1 of our interview with Michael Belfiore, author of The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs
Remember those little discs from America Online? You couldn’t get away from them. Sign up and get 800 billion free hours. For beginning users, and we all were at the time, America Online was the internet. AOL quickly became big enough to merge with, take over really, Time Warner. Then things went south. AOL’s fortune was built on dial-up internet service, Time Warner was built on print media, two things that just didn’t turn out to be strong pillars. So the merger died. And today, the company, which is now called “Aol.”, officially begins a new chapter as its own company once more. What will the new/old company be?
Regarding our recent story on the term “unfriend” being named the Oxford American Dictionary’s word of the year, we heard from a number of people who say they’ve never heard anyone say “unfriend,” but rather, they hear and use “defriend” instead — as in, “I defriended her on Facebook because she was always sending me stupid quizzes.” Ammon Shea from Oxford University Press was gracious enough to talk to us again to clear up this “unfriend” versus “defriend” issue.
Also today: Part two of our interview with David Michel-Davies regarding the most important Internet events of the decade.
The folks behind the Webby Awards have published their take on the biggest Internet moments in the years 2000 to 2009.
Guest: Webby Awards Executive Director David-Michel Davies