Richard Giles

I’ve heard people rave about George Dyson’s presentation before, but never heard him myself until today. He’s as good as they say. His head is full of the history of computing, and it screams out of his lips at an almost high-pitch-helium-like monologue–not in reference to his voice, more his hyperactivity.

He’s got plenty of visuals and fun information. If I ever get the time I’ll have to search a bit online for more, e.g.: Turing’s Cathedral.

An incredible finishing thought: “Search engines are a way for computers to search us.”

Goldhaber is a thinker. So what he presented isn’t easy to sum up in a few paragraphs–illustrated by how many people were taking photographs of each of his slides. I’ll just try a quick summary, because I’m guessing he’ll make his thoughts available online, or in a book.

“Think of the human world as a Massively Multiple Interactive Game (which it is).” Segments of history include feudal, MMI (exchange of Money, the prevalence of Markets and the dominance of Industrial production of standardized goods), and the attention economy. Goldhaber detailed the aspects of these three levels, and their differences.

He also discusses the concept of attention.

It was all very interesting, but something that needs exploring in more detail. Thankfully, Goldhaber hopes to do a workshop later.

Oooooh. Announcements.

Live.com has some new enhancements. Windows Live search has a new beta.

Why’s he wearing a suit?

They seem pretty excited (they do work for Microsoft), but to be honest they look like old portals that just happen to have an AJAX front end. Not particularly compelling. Microsoft know how to program AJAX–big deal.

OK. So I’m now being really cynical, but the presentation is called “Search and the Network Effect: Sponsored by Microsoft,” and yet his presentation is effectively a product pitch. This is old stuff with a front end that’s perhaps a few months old (I’m not going to say it’s fresh, because there’s nothing new).