[ale] Hardening of the Brain

[James P. Kinney III]

On Wed, 2006-08-02 at 19:24 -0400, Daniel Howard wrote:
> From: "Jeff Lightner" <jlightner at water.com>
>  >I still say this internet thing will never really catch on...
> 
> OK, I have to tell my favorite story in this regard: When I was still a 
> faculty researcher at Ga Tech we had a project with Sprint (at the time, 
> 1990, looking at deploying conventional cable systems) and Scientific 
> Atlanta, looking for more applications on their advanced settop box of 
> the time, the 8600x. 

Be sure to document this fully as a "prior art" exhibit to oppose
Blackboards new patent on electronic learning systems!

>  We did a distance learning application using 
> questions sent via the vertical blanking interval and interactivity 
> using the remote control and back channel to answer multiple choice 
> questions.  In the final presentation, I had asked my students to 
> suggest other applications they could launch on the settop box platform, 
> and at the time, the Internet was Gopher, a text based application to 
> find info on lots of subjects.  I proposed that we build a Gopher client 
> in the settop box so cable customers could look up info on good hiking 
> trails, restaurant reviews, etc.  The Sprint VP looked at me (and he was 
> Indian, so read this with a suitable accent) and said "This Internet 
> stuff is just some geeky thing you academics are interested in, no one 
> is the real world will be interested in this."
> 
> I met that VP years later at a conference I made a presentation at on 
> next generation cable modem technology, and I reminded him of his 
> comments, and he said "Yes, I wish that was the first time I was wrong 
> about a new technology."
> 
> I feel that same way now about thin client open source technology, BTW.
> 
> Daniel
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-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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