Kickstarter hits one million backers
— at a current rate of $100M pledged per year; by comparison, the NEA’s budget is $154M #Watsky's "Amazing Grace" at #OccupyLA
— “the waves of grain on the stolen land, theft is as American as a Cola can” #Plink, a multiplayer audio experiment built with Node and Web Audio
— see also: ToneCraft, by the same creator #Photojojo/Jelly founder Amit Gupta's search for a bone marrow donor
— if you’re of South Asian descent, please get swabbed; Seth Godin’s giving $10k to whoever donates #Olson timezone database shut down over IP case
— the volunteer-run open-source project is the definitive source for global tz info #Brian Lam's Regrets of An Asshole
— on the former Gizmodo editor’s contentious and regretful relationship with Steve Jobs #Apple's 1987 Knowledge Navigator, Only One Month Late
In 1987, Apple released this concept video for Knowledge Navigator, a voice-based assistant combined with a touchscreen tablet computer.
Based on the dates mentioned in the Knowledge Navigator video, it takes place on September 16, 2011. The date on the professor’s calendar is September 16, and he’s looking for a 2006 paper written “about five years ago,” setting the year as 2011.
And this morning, at the iPhone keynote, Apple announced Siri, a natural language-based voice assistant, would be built into iOS 5 and a core part of the new iPhone 4S.
So, 24 years ago, Apple predicted a complex natural-language voice assistant built into a touchscreen Apple device, and was less than a month off.
(Thanks to Hugh Dubberly for the video, who helped create it for ex-CEO John Sculley’s EDUCOM 1987 keynote in six weeks on a $60,000 budget.)