In the future, computers will mutate beyond recognition. Computers won’t be intimidating, wire-festooned, high-rise bit-factories swallowing your entire desk. They will tuck under your arm, into your valise, into your kid’s backpack. After that, they’ll fit onto your face, plug into your ear. And after that – they’ll simply melt. They’ll become fabric. What does a computer really need? Not glass boxes – it needs thread – power wiring, glass fiber-optic, cellular antennas, microcircuitry. These are woven things. Fabric and air and electrons and light. Magic handkerchiefs with instant global access. You’ll wear them around your neck. You’ll make tents from them if you want. They will be everywhere, throwaway. Like denim. Like paper. Like a child’s kite. This is coming a lot faster than anyone realizes.
Predictor: Sterling, Bruce
Prediction, in context:In a 1993 speech for the National Academy of Sciences Convocation on Technology and Education in Washington, D.C., author William Gibson makes the following remarks: ”The glass boxes that we recognize as computers won’t last much longer. Already the boxes are becoming flat screens. In the future, computers will mutate beyond recognition. Computers won’t be intimidating, wire-festooned, high-rise bit-factories swallowing your entire desk. They will tuck under your arm, into your valise, into your kid’s backpack. After that, they’ll fit onto your face, plug into your ear. And after that – they’ll simply melt. They’ll become fabric. What does a computer really need? Not glass boxes – it needs thread – power wiring, glass fiber-optic, cellular antennas, microcircuitry. These are woven things. Fabric and air and electrons and light. Magic handkerchiefs with instant global access. You’ll wear them around your neck. You’ll make tents from them if you want. They will be everywhere, throwaway. Like denim. Like paper. Like a child’s kite. This is coming a lot faster than anyone realizes.”
Biography:Bruce Sterling, a writer, consultant and science fiction enthusiast, wrote or co-wrote “Schismatrix,” “The Hacker Crackdown” and “The Difference Engine” and edited “Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology.” In the 1990s, he wrote tech articles for Fortune, Harper’s, Details, Whole Earth Review and Wired, where he was a contributing writer from its founding. He published the nonfiction book “Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years” in 2002. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: May 13, 1993
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Internet Appliances
Name of publication: National Academy of Sciences
Title, headline, chapter name: Literary Freeware: Not for Commercial Use
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.eff.org/Net_culture/Cyberpunk/William_Gibson/sterling_gibson_nas.speeches
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney