Apple’s 1987 Knowledge Navigator Video

I recall when this video first came out how awe-struck I was. You have to remember that the graphical Web version of the Internet that we have today did not exist when this video was produced - it came six years later. This vision of how the summary of human knowledge could be digitally available and easily transferable between geographies at the click of a button was a sci-fi pipe dream at that moment. As was the finger-driven multi-touch interface which is just now, 20 years later, really becoming a reality (iPhone). Same with easy point-to-point video conferencing (iChat / Skype). While today we still don’t have digital computer assistants we can talk to like in this video, we’ve got nearly everything else. Video uploaded from: Update 10/4/11 - well, I guess my last comment about not having a digital assistant is now irrelevant: I have the original Siri app on my iPhone, and while it’s close, it’s no digital assistant. What Apple previewed, built right into the OS, with one click of a button, that’s nearly what was described in this video to a T. Quite impressive.