Writing. Smartpen. HCI. A fight over freedom at Apple's core - FT.com / UK. Blast from the Past: Vintage Technologies That We No Longer Use. Most of the technologies that we have used in the past have been eclipsed by the remarkable technology that we use today. Advances in their design have occurred in tandem with the advances in technology in this digital era, with many large products being redesigned and miniaturized into amazingly small sizes. While we may laugh at the fact that anyone ever found this technology to be cutting-edge, we can’t discount its place in history as a forerunner for all of the technology that wouldn’t exist today without its dinosaur ancestry. Here is a quick look through history at vintage technologies that we no longer use. 1. “Super 8/8mm” Handheld Video Cameras Kodak invented the Super 8/8mm film format in 1965. 2. Betamax was developed by Sony in 1975, a year before the ultimately more popular VHS format was invented as a response to Sony’s attempt to control the format of the industry. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
The telegraph was the precursor to telex and fax machines. 14. 15. 16. 17. The 50 Best Inventions of 2009. What's Next for Computer Interfaces? Earlier this week, the humble computer mouse celebrated its 40th birthday. While surprisingly little has changed since Doug Engelbart, an engineer at Stanford Research Institute, in Palo Alto, CA, first demonstrated the mouse to a skeptical crowd in San Francisco, we may have already seen a few glimpses of the future of computer interfaces. If so, over the next few years, the future of the computer interface will likely revolve around touch. Thanks to the popularity of the iPhone, the touch screen has gained recognition as a practical interface for computers. In the coming years, we may see increasingly useful variations on the same theme. A couple of projects, in particular, point the way toward interacting more easily with miniature touch screens, as well as with displays the size of walls. One problem with devices like the iPhone is that users’ fingers tend to cover up important information on the screen.