He’s going to complain and then show us some ideas.

He says the past twenty years of computing have been boring because it’s been focused on business. The predicted coupling of computers and the human brain hasn’t revolutionized human thought in general, even though it has happened in science. That’s because we generally are “instrumental reasoners,” i.e., we think about stuff only in relation to our current “goal structure.”

He shows a great video of the program Sketchpad which in 1963 was the first object-oriented graphics system: A room-sized half-MIPS computer that let you draw shapes on a screen. Totally cool. So early and so dead-on right: it is such a pristine example of the power of object-oriented graphics.

He shows a video from 1968 of Engelbart demoing what looks a hell of a lot like a personal computer. It includes communicating via video and audio with a remote worker. And another shows a 1968 graphical workflow designer. And, he asks, why don’t we have anything like Papert’s tools for teaching kids how to program? Kay is making his point that we haven’t really come as far as we think. We’re not making the breakthroughs we once did. He says it’s because “We’re not even thinking about such things.” [Or is it simply that the rate of innovation is always faster at the beginning? And perhaps we haven’t done some of these things because there’s no actual desire for them? E.g., it may seem obvious to Kay that kids want to and need to program, but he’s an uber-technoid.

Noiw he’s showing a paint program for kids that looks a lot like an instance of Squeak programming environment. (Yup. I got something right!) It’s a slick and easy programming environment: to get the output of a steering wheel he just drew to steer the car he just drew, he drags a field from the wheel’s property sheet onto the directional field on the car’s property sheet. He gets applause.

Now he shows work by 11-12 year olds using the environment. Some elegant solutions to problems like getting a clownfish to find its meal by seeking the darker color gradient or keeping a car-graphic driving in the center of a twisting road-graphic.

Now he and Dave Smith are showing “pre-alpha” software that Kay calls a “broadband collaboration space.” Kay refers to Smith as “the slash in TCP/IP.” Given that the number of groups is 2ⁿ, how can we enable scalable group collaboration?

Answer: We’re looking at a shared 3D landscape. We’re seeing Dave’s view and Alan’s view on separate screens. The landscape is populated with framed photos of friends. You can look through a “portal” into another space.

There’s a cool demo of a flag waving in which the ripples are all dynamically computed. Likewise for an underwater world. And he draws a crappy 2D drawing of a fish and it gets turned into a nicely rendered 3D fish swimming in the shared environment. Kay draws a piece of seaweed. It too is rendered and shared.

Key point, he says: Late binding is good. He’s surprised that that’s not more widely embraced yet.

The audience gives Kay an extended round of applause.

Categories: Uncategorized dw