What Does a Nobel Prize for Radio Astronomy Have to Do with Your Telephone? It’s Been a Decade Since the Break-up of AT&T. Has the Spirit Passed Out of its Bell Labs, as Some Charge? Or is it Still the Preeminent Technology Lab in the U.S.? | Imagining the Internet

The prediction, in brief:

Before a new age in which broadband and wireless will allow networks to take off, someone will have to come up with new user interfaces. There are two other fundamentals: silicon and software. Most technological advances that profoundly affect people’s lives have, at their root, changes in the basic sciences.

Predictor: Stanzione, Daniel

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Richard Rapaport goes to visit AT&T’s Bell Labs research scientists and administrators, interviewing Daniel Stanzione, the eighth president of Bell Labs. Wired quotes Stanzione saying:”AT&T spends $3 billion a year on R&D. There are three basic network areas: the broadband networks, the wireless networks, and client-server computing. If you go back five to 10 years, you’d see that these three major network thrusts were not dominating attention, activity, or money as they are today. All of them are getting more funding. And in each, software is a key. They all involve developments in user interface. If you look at the history of these networks, you’ll see that they were preceded by the invention of a user interface. Before there were telephone networks, somebody had to invent the telephone; before there were cellular networks, someone had to invent two-way radio handsets; before LANs, the PC had to come along; and before a new age in which broadband and wireless will allow networks to take off, someone will have to come up with new user interfaces. There are two other fundamentals: silicon and software. Most technological advances that profoundly affect people’s lives have, at their root, changes in the basic sciences.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure

Subtopic: Language/Interface/Software

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: What Does a Nobel Prize for Radio Astronomy Have to Do with Your Telephone? It’s Been a Decade Since the Break-up of AT&T. Has the Spirit Passed Out of its Bell Labs, as Some Charge? Or is it Still the Preeminent Technology Lab in the U.S.?

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.04/bell.labs_pr.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney