Personal Dynamic Media

Personal Dynamic Media by Kay and Goldberg was another fascinating read, as it was amazing to see how far ahead of their time these people were.  The whole concept behind the Dynabook was very interesting to me.  If I were to have guessed when this article was written, I would've probably guessed sometime in the mid 1980s.  I was shocked to see that this article was written in the 1970s.  The Dynabook seems to be the model of most of the computers today.  It was stunning to see the similarities  in different fonts, filing, editing, drawing/painting, animation and music that we have with today's computers.  These ideas were the blueprint to the machines we are currently using for our online experiences.  It is amazing to see how spot on Kay and Goldberg were about their predictions for the future.  Two quotes that stuck out to me when reading this article were, "an architect might wish to simulate three-dimensional space in order to peruse and edit his current designs, which could be conveniently stored and cross-referenced," and  "a doctor could have on file all of his patients, his business records, a drug reaction system, and so on, all of which could travel with him wherever he went" (p. 403).  Their plan was to make life easier for people in the future and their work ended up coming to fruition.  It's very amusing to think about how many different careers have been affected positively due to computers and their advancement.  This was about 40 years ago.  What will happen 40 years from now?  The possibilities are endless and I'm excited to see what transpires.