Saturday, February 21, 2004

Invisible Revolution: the instigator

You might want to go and have a look at Frode Hegland's interesting (and entertaining) website www.invisiblerevolution.net, where you will find amongst other things a series of streaming video interviews with Douglas Engelbert (now a respectable 79 years old and still going strong), the inventor of the mouse.

I found the site myself thanks to an interview with Frode Hegland by Victoria Shannon today in the International Herald Tribune.

See also one of Hegland's other interesting projects, Cynapse, at www.cynapse.org, which is designed, according to the interview in order "to make all text on a Web page "interactive," not just designated, underlined Web links. It's as though information on a screen is liquid."

Here's how the Invisible Revolution site introduces itself:

"Welcome to the Invisible Revolution, the story of Doug Engelbart, the man who invented much of the computer environment we live in today - and still few know his name. This is his story, and the story of his fellow dreamers, thinkers, doers - revolutionaries - who changed our lives forever.

How did we go from using computers with punched cards, where you'd have to wait a day for the results of your calculations - to sitting around in coffee shops with a laptop?

Marshall McLuhan said: "Electric technology is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and re-evaluate practically every thought, every action, and every institution formerly taken for granted".

Someone changed our world when we weren't looking. Who is behind this transformation? What were their motives. The Invisible Revolution shines light on these issues with unparalleled access to Doug Engelbart and many others who were there, who changed our world."