There was a thread on the Ontology Summit list about Doug Engelbart.
The last two notes on that thread (by Peter Yim and me) raised some
interesting issues about his life's work. (Copies below) (01)
His last major project proposed a Dynamic Knowledge Repository (DKR)
as the basis for augmenting human intelligence. Peter's note points
to the slides and audio of a talk, which Doug E. presented to the NSF
in 2005. My note has some historical background. Following is a
brief definition of DKR with further links: (02)
http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/dkrs.html (03)
The Wikipedia article on DKR doesn't show any funding for the ideas: (04)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Knowledge_Repository (05)
The DAML project, which led to the current tools for the Semantic Web
also ended in 2005. As tools, they have been useful for many purposes.
But they represent a bottom-up approach that doesn't have the vision
of Tim B-L's book on the Semantic Web or the vision of Doug E's DKR. (06)
Questions about vision: How useful is it? Tools are necessary for
implementing software, but by themselves, they don't suggest any
directions or goals for further development. How useful are goals?
Without funding, goals just sit on a web site. But there are huge
numbers of tools that just sit on a web site (see Sourceforge). (07)
But a good collection of tools that embody an infectious "meme" can
be copied and spread. Note history: Doug E. and his colleagues
presented the mouse and related tools in a famous demo in 1968. It
took a lot of hard work at Xerox PARC to make it a product ten years
later. Then Steve Jobs copied it as the Mac in 1984, but it required
Bill Gates & Co. to copy it as Windows 3.1 to make it the universal
GUI for computers. That development took more than 20 years. (08)
Are there lessons we can learn from these developments? (09)
What are they? (010)
John (011)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] [ontology-summit] Doug Engelbart passed
away last night
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2013 11:30:50 -0700
From: Peter Yim <peter.yim@xxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: [ontolog-forum] <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: [ontolog-forum] <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> (012)
I went through my archives and managed to dig up this 2005 talk by
Doug Engelbart at NSF for Susan Turnbull's Expedition Workshop. This
is probably the most recent talk of his that I have on archive. In
Doug's own words, he provided us a glimpse into his vision. (013)
It's available online now* ... (014)
== Special Invited Talk by Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart == (015)
* Date: 1 Sep 2005
* Venue: NSF
* Host: Susan Turnbull (GSA) - NITRD Expedition Workshop
* Opening Intro by: Simon Szykman (then, NCO/NITRD Director) (016)
* Invited Speaker: Doug Engelbart (017)
* Topic: Facilitating the Evolution of our Collective IQ - What our
Organizations and Governments Could Do (018)
* Slides:
http://bootstrap.cim3.net/file/pub/presentation/Expedition_Workshop/2005-09-01_Building_High_Performance_Organizations/Doug_Engelbart_2005_09_01.pdf (019)
* Audio recording: [ 2:02:00 ; mp3 ; 13.96 MB ]
-
http://bootstrap.cim3.net/file/pub/presentation/Expedition_Workshop/2005-09-01_Building_High_Performance_Organizations/DougEngelbart-NSF-Talk_20050901.mp3 (020)
( ... *this material has actually not been available online, following
the closure of that workshop series around mid-2010, until now.) (021)
=ppy (022)
---------- original message ----------
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, Jul 4, 2013 at 6:52 AM
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Doug Engelbart passed away last night
To: ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (023)
On 7/3/2013 6:22 PM, Jack Ring wrote:
> Doug's favorite input device was a set of keys on two levels
> (like piano or court reporter). (024)
From http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html
> On December 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17
> researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center
> at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, presented
> a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, NLS,
> they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was
> a session of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the
> Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about
> 1,000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the
> computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations
> demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing
> and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration
> involving two persons at different sites communicating over a
> network with audio and video interface. (025)
Most of that group later migrated to Xerox PARC, where they developed
the WIMPy interface (Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointing device).
Xerox sold some very expensive workstations based on that technology.
But they occupied a tiny niche until Steve Jobs visited PARC and
adapted the ideas. (026)
Following is a shorter excerpt from the 1968 demo combined with a short
talk by Doug E. in 2004. It also shows the piano-like keys on the left
of the usual keyboard: (027)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23174052 (028)
For more detail about the visit to PARC by Steve Jobs and his crew,
see http://lowendmac.com/orchard/05/apple-lisa-history.html (029)
From that article:
> Convinced that the technology at PARC could help Apple usher in the 1980s,
> Jobs offered Xerox a killer deal: Apple, which was privately owned at the
>time,
> would allow Xerox to invest $1 million in Apple, which was sure to soar in
> value when the company went public in 1981 - in exchange for two guided tours
> of PARC's technology. Xerox happily accepted and gave Jobs and a team of Lisa
> project engineers a tour. (030)
That's a good example of the famous "Reality Distortion Field" generated
by Steve Jobs: "If you allow me to steal your company's secrets, I'll
allow you to invest a million dollars in my company." (031)
John (032)
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