The three presentations below highlight the context and milestones in the history of computational technology:
- Timeline of Computing History (by Computer.org link)
- Some Milestones in Computer Input Devices: An Informal Timeline (by Bill Buxton link)
- (A History of) Mobile Computing (by Jesper Kjeldskov link)
But technology initiatives are also political actions, people creating value, new resources, contesting for new properties. Yet the creative spark that ignites the art of designing, developing and applying technology is elusive and unmanageable. Technology, innovation, organisation, society, knowledge; so many questions arise. What is management's role in motivating change? What is the impact of each wave of newer and ever better technology? How does innovation advance? Incrementally, slowly, abruptly, diffusing, drifting, adapting, evolving? What are the actual trajectories of innovation as it happens? We know fads and fashions come and go but society is in thrall with the 'new', the radical shift, that more often than not fails to acknowledge its own past or pedigree, its reliance upon older things, systems and ways of knowing the world.