bzs@MULTIMAX.ENCORE.COM (Barry Shein) (10/24/88)
The Hacker's Convention is a gathering of some of the most innovative minds in computerdom once a year to formally and informally discuss just about everything having to do with computers and technology in general. I was fortunate to be among them this year and I thought I'd report some things that should be of interest to this list. DVI (Digital Video, Interactive) - This is also known by other acronyms. There were demos of some interesting systems and talks about its potential. One system, for example, framed the screen with typical windows in which television quality video was displayed. You were on an Aztec site in Mexico and could "walk" around the buildings and grounds with a mouse. For one scene they pointed a fisheye camera upwards and had a 360 degree view of the entire site you could positon yourself in (this got a round of loud applause.) Clicking a menu put you inside a museum to wander about with a collection of relics from that site. Another system let you interactively do interior decorating with composite video images. HyperText - Ted Nelson and the Xanadu crew were about demo'ing their system which is starting to look very convincing. It looks like they're really going to be putting the world's written thoughts on-line. I think the term Ted Nelson used was "the manifest destiny of literature", I couldn't agree more! Mathematica - Stephen Wolfram was demoing his Mathematica system, I was impressed. It looks like someone has finally pulled together symbolic mathematics, graphics, text processing, workstations, backends, the whole shebang into one system. This one will be *very* important in Universities, I expect it to be a dominant software package in the math and sciences. It can both get a student excited about math and be a professional tool for the scientist. Graphics - A new film from Pixar was shown (I believe it was Todd Rundgren giving the talk, I walked in a little late.) They used a 16-CPU transputer system to generate several minutes of stunning film. I think it's safe to say they have now surpassed the best of Disney and Warner Bros (etc) in quality of animation, this stuff has detail the hand animators could only dream of, reflections reflect, shadows move, snot wobbles (sorry, but it really was in there.) The film is called "Tin Toy", don't miss it, synthetic movies are fast becoming a reality. Other scuttlebut (in the halls of conferences the conferences go on in the halls...): People were excited about bringing multi-media computing to the homes, the next "television", only this time it's useful. The question was how? What's needed? On-line services, cheaper/faster/more-interesting home systems. Someone talked of the entire home being the computer, of it not being this box that sat in the corner but part of everyday life, an extension of the microprocessors in your VCR and microwave oven. Your stereo melded into your telephone melded into your television melded into library systems, shopping networks etc. It's been mostly said before, but I think the pieces are slowly falling into place. Someone talked about this brave new world marking the end of the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution brought uniformity, the assembly line, massive production of goods which were a best guess at the customer's needs honed down by a feedback loop of marketing and mass redesign. The new wave would be customization, I can sit down and design my own shoes or whatever on a screen in my home (possibly by just altering standard models) both for look and fit and a robot at the factory would receive that spec and build it for me, to my tastes. Everything would be customizable! There was a large poster being handed out from Rockwell outlining a plan for the next 100 years of space travel. Although no official winner was announced there were nominations taken for the best hack of the year and voting by applause. I think NASA won for their launch of the Discovery the previous week. It was an interesting conference. -Barry Shein, ||Encore||
bzs@MULTIMAX.ENCORE.COM (Barry Shein) (10/24/88)
And now for a darker note... Normally (as I understand it) the press is not allowed into the convention until Sunday brunch as a matter of policy. Apparently CBS called the convention organizers and convinced them to allow CBS in all day Saturday for a spot they had lined up that evening in their news segment. CBS abused that privilege in the most unimaginably irresponsible way. What they did was take the word "hacker" from the title of the convention and fabricated a story about people who break into military computer installations, phone systems etc. It appeared on their 6 o'clock news segment. It opened with a shot of the convention grounds and a voice-over about this being a "revolutionary army in the hills plotting their next attacks on the Valley below" (referring to Silicon Valley.) There were random, unrelated interviews edited in with Don Parker of SRI warning of what a danger computer system crackers were and someone from Pacific Bell saying "hackers, crackers, I don't care what you call them, to me they're criminals!" There was a small segment on (I forget his name, from LBL) describing how he caught that German cracker who was invading military networks. There was no indication that the people in the interviews had any idea that this material was to be used in relationship with the conference. I suspect they felt as shocked and scandalized as the rest of us did. The whole thing was sensationalist, opportunistic journalism of the worst kind and CBS is to be condemned for it. I know there are 200+ computer experts who will know better in the future than to ever speak with CBS reporters again. How can one cooperate with reporters who come to a conference, see nothing but technical presentations on computers, graphics, teaching children computers etc and walk away and write them up as criminals just to sell some commercial space, because sensationalism sells soap?! The reporters were so interested, so friendly! I remember them hovering around and taking what seemed like excessive footage of a recumbent bicycle outfitted with five computers, a ham radio and solar power panels which has been ridden by an attendee around the country. This is the work of a criminal? They never used the footage. CBS is to be considered outlaws of the media, there can be no tolerance of willful liars if a free press is to survive. With rights come responsibilities, and CBS was irresponsible. We all deserve a public apology, at the very least. (You might also want to refer to a good article in MacWeek this past week on the convention which also covered this CBS scandal.) -Barry Shein, speaking for myself
hwt@leibniz.uucp (Henry Troup) (10/26/88)
Was that CBS national news, or a local CBS _affiliate_ ? Henry Troup utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!hwt%leibniz | BNR is not Bell-Northern Reseach hwt@bnr (BITNET/NETNORTH) | responsible for my Ottawa, Canada (613) 765-2337 (Voice) | opinions
michael@roberta.UUCP (Michael A. Moran ) (10/27/88)
In article <147@bnr-fos.UUCP>, hwt@leibniz.uucp (Henry Troup) writes: > > Was that CBS national news, or a local CBS _affiliate_ ? It was national. The segment was so poor from a technical standpoint (not to mention truthfulness) that the producers and the editor of CBS news should be personally embarrassed. Michael A. Moran uunet!vdx!roberta -- Michael Andrew Moran Santa Cruz, CA (408) 475-3379 uunet!vdx!roberta!michael
jbush@ficc.uu.net (james bush) (11/14/88)
I noticed in the editorial section of the paper an article whose general tone was critical of viruses, break-ins, etc. However, it was interesting to note that they defined a "hacker" to be a person who enjoys programming for its own sake, and that they deliberately made a distinction between "hackers" in general, and people who were trying to break the system. Seems they were a bit more careful than CBS. (Hm. I ran the above through the spelling checker, and it was perfectly happy with "hacker" :-)
jbush@ficc.uu.net (james bush) (11/14/88)
In a former article where I mentioned the editorial in the paper, my signature line was cut off (too long), and I could not cancel. Therefore, I need to add the disclaimer that this was my own opnion, and not that of my employer. -- James Bush, Ferranti, Houston The Bible - the "source code" of life "Righteousness exalts a nation,but sin is a disgrace to any people." Prov. 14:34 Internal: jbush,5230, mail A/3204, room A/3602 External: ..!uunet!ficc!jbush All opinions are my own, and do not represent those of my employer.