“There is more information available at our fingertips during a walk in the woods than in any computer system, yet people find a walk among trees relaxing and computers frustrating. Machines that fit the human environment, instead of forcing humans to enter theirs, will make using a computer as refreshing as taking a walk in the woods.”
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it."
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"Machines that fit the human environment, instead of forcing humans to enter theirs, will make using a computer as refreshing as taking a walk in the woods."
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"For thirty years most interface design, and most computer design, has been headed down the path of the "dramatic" machine. Its highest idea is to make a computer so exciting, so wonderful, so interesting, that we never want to be without it. A less-traveled path I call the "invisible"; its highest idea is to make a computer so imbedded, so fitting, so natural, that we use it without even thinking about it."
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"I see a sea of networkers all doing and saying the same things.
They look alike, act alike and sound alike when speaking to prospects. If you want to rise above the average, mediocre networker... then you have to think differently."
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"Long term, the PC and workstation will wither because computing access will be everywhere: in the walls, on wrists, and in 'scrap computers' lying about waiting to be grabbed as needed."
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"Ubiquitous computing names the third wave in computing, just now beginning. First were mainframes, each shared by lots of people. Now we are in the personal computing era, person and machine staring uneasily at each other across the desktop. Next comes ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives."
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"Virtual reality focuses an enormous apparatus on simulating the world rather than on invisibly enhancing the world that already exists."
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"virtual reality is only a map, not a territory."
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"Today's multimedia machine makes the computer screen into a demanding focus of attention rather than allowing it to fade into the background."
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"Whenever people learn something sufficiently well, they cease to be aware of it. When you look at a street sign, for example, you absorb its information without consciously performing the act of reading."
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it. Consider writing, perhaps the first information technology. The ability to represent spoken language symbolically for longterm storage freed information from the limits of individual memory. Today this technology is ubiquitous in industrialized countries."
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"More than 50 million personal computers have been sold, and the computer nonetheless remains largely in a world of its own. It is approachable only through complex jargon that has nothing to do with the tasks for which people use computers.
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
"The most profound technologies are those that disappear." ― ― ― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)
“The scarce resource of the 21st century will not be technology; it will be attention.”
― Mark Weiser (1952-1999)