Remember when Wi-Fi was a new thing, where everyone had to plug in their computers just to get online? No?
Well, then you’re going to be in for a real treat. It may be Saturday, but today’s video is going to be a real throwback.
This is a video taken by thinkingbricks.com at the 1999 NYC MacWorld Public/ Keynote address, recorded on a Sony Hi8 HandyCam. According to thinkingbricks.com, it was a standing-only room, and Steve Jobs was happily surfing his iBook (the granddaddy of the Macbook Air we have today). Unbeknowst to everyone, he was doing it wirelessly – until he picked it up and walked across the stage.
The video almost seems comical at this day and age, where Wi-Fi runs through our internet-addled veins and through our smartphones, tablets, and laptops. In 1999, everyone gave Steve Jobs a standing ovation for putting a laptop through a hula-hoop. Then, AirPort was the most exciting new advancement in technology. Today, it’s something that works a bit too slow sometimes.
It really makes us reflect about the innovations that are coming out today. Today, the idea of wearables and wireless charging and 3D printing may still be new and fresh and exciting, but who knows what will happen fourteen, fifteen years from now. They will probably look back at the latest releases from this year and laugh because to them it seems foreign and prehistoric, the way you might have laughed about this video (and seriously, I laughed a lot).
What will we put through the hula-hoop next?