Leonardo's laptop: human needs and the new computing technologies

1980

This volume summarizes the results of a 2-year technology assessment of personal computers. The purpose of this study was to explore possible future modes of growth of the personal computer and related industries, to assess the impacts and consequences of that growth, and to present some of the policy issues and options which may arise as a consequence of the development of personal computer technology. However, due to limitations of time, funds, and personpower, detailed analyses were restricted to three main issue areas: (1) the growth of personal computer technology, (2 the expected impacts of the technology, and (3) the public policy implications in areas of education, employment, and international trade. Much of the information generated in this report was based upon the results of Delphi surveys. Tables of data are included.

2021

Once again, children are trying to learn from home, often on an inadequate device and with hard-pressed and under-supporting parents struggling to cope. Even for families lucky enough to get a government laptop, is this enough? What can we learn from previous efforts to drop tech into homes and expect children to keep up with their education? In this blog, David Souter discusses evidence from a much-publicised initiative in developing countries to explore the value of technologies for education and how pitfalls such as technological determinism and lack of sustainability might limit their real-life development potential. Some readers may remember One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). It was launched with fanfare by the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab's director Nicholas Negroponte in 2005. The idea: a basic laptop for every child in the developing world. For a time, it became the darling of ICT4D, a symbol of what technology could do to 'solve' apparently intractable problems that humanity was failing to resolve. Negroponte wasn't shy about his project: I don't want to place too much on OLPC, but if I really had to look at how to eliminate poverty, create peace, and work on the environment, I can't think of a better way to do it. It was enthusiastically endorsed by big names in the techno-world, but from the start it also had its critics and its sceptics.

1980

A technology assessment of personal computers was conducted to study both the socially desirable and undesirable impacts of this new technology in three main areas: education, employment, and international trade. Information gleaned from this study was then used to generate suggestions for public policy options which could influence these impacts. Four primary methods were used to develop the information for the policy analysis stages of the assessment: (1) search and analysis of the relevant literature, (2) development of a series of scenarios of alternative futures, (3) performance of two Delphi surveys and a cross-impact analysis based on these scenarios, and (4) interviews and/or surveys of the potentially affected stakeholders and decision makers. Tables of data are included as well as a list of references. Appendices include Delphi questionnaires with summaries of findings and an employment questionnaire used in the study. (LLS)

1980

Technology assessment of personal computers: Volume 2: Personal computer technology, users, and uses. JM NILLES, FR CARLSON 1980. Personal computer and research strategies, were discussed. The report examines ...

In this course you will develop a critical understanding of the many historical, socio-cultural, political economic, and techno-scientific dimensions of contemporary global computational cultures. Instead of taking a strictly chronological approach, we will traverse the history of computing by crisscrossing the official “timeline” of shrinking sizes or increasing functionalities of computers with non-linear genealogies of human-machine relations. Examining a wide range of “revolutionary” technologies and discourses associated with modern computing from the late 19th century to the present, we will ask: a) what or who has been envisioned and operated as a “computer” at different moments, and how did it/they work? b) why is the study and development of computing (still) largely centered on the modern West? c) how have new computational inventions and innovations emerged alongside various social and political shifts in the world in roughly the last hundred years? d) how can we reimagine the futures of computing in the here and now? Instead of treating computers and society as two separate domains, students will learn how to approach the interdisciplinary and intersectional histories and socio-technical relations of mechanical and electronic computing, colonialism, cybernetics, cold war, software programming, labor, race, caste, gender, climate change, digital media and infrastructure, algorithms, and artificial intelligence.

Tbis article reconstructs the social networks linking early personal computing pioneers in order to identify the social and political representations and images that defined these social networks. Using interuiews of key actors and, guided by social network theo y, we describe the linkage between technical development and cultural representations, particularly those of the user, in the case of personal computers. From this reconstructed perspective, the personal computer as a technology can be seen both as a machine and as a culture, enabling us to analyze the way our own activity as today's computer users has been socially constructed. Focusing on the translation of ideas from the Stanford Research Institute to Xerox PARC in the 1970s, we report on ourprogress in rebuilding these networks and the representations they contained. How did the creators of personal computer technology envision the user? How did they perceive the future of computers within the larger social matrix? What technical options were included, or excluded, from the hardware, systems software , and applications on the basis of these representations? How have technical designs based upon the values and visions of early technical innovators shaped the way users integrate present computers into their work? In this study, we argue that the creators of personal computer technology linked their innovations to ideologies or representations that explained and justified their designs. Those visions have become invisible, latent assumptions to latter-day users of the microcomputer, even though they shape these users'