Dear SIGCIS Friends, I'm delighted to announce the publication on YouTube of several new lectures. All lectures took place recently at the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, California. Enjoy! Dag -- Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvUJpvop-0w Many people consider Apple the most powerful brand in the world -- an accolade that's hard to dispute when its product line includes iPad, the iPod, iPhone, iMac and MacBook Air. Companies all over the world try to emulate Apple's creative genius and groundbreaking marketing. But what is the real secret to Apple's success? According to Ken Segall, the man who put the "i" in iMac and served as a member of Steve Jobs' creative inner circle for more than a decade, the answer is: simplicity. Segall's book reveals what sets Apple apart from other technology companies and makes it stand out in a complicated world: a deep, almost religious belief in the power of simplicity. The purest expression of Steve Jobs' unique viewpoint, it's apparent in everything Apple does, from product design to advertising. Serving as Jobs' ad agency creative director for both NeXT and Apple, Segall led the team that created Apple's legendary Think Different campaign, which was an integral part of Apple's transformation following Jobs' return. Segall's other clients have included technology giants such as Dell, Intel and IBM as well as consumer brands such as JCPenney. Harry McCracken, TIME's Editor-at-large, has covered the technology beat for two decades, writing about the Web, mobile technology, consumer electronics and PCs for PC World, Macworld, CNET, and his own site, Technologizer. He will moderate a discussion with Segall about Apple, Steve Jobs and the art of marketing technology to the masses, from the inside out. [Recorded July 31, 2012] DARPA's Dan Kaufman in Conversation with John Markoff of The New York Times http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny6xDCFU4nI Imagine what the world would look like if we gave everyone the ability to solve its toughest problems, the freedom to explore the world, and the tools to build the future. These are ideas that have been driving Dan Kaufman and his research efforts at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He is convinced that if we build the tools and technology to empower everyone to participate, we would be amazed at the results. Recently at DARPA there have been multiple efforts to research the mobilization and self-organization potential of social networks & crowd sourcing. Two interesting questions arise: can you use the power of the crowd to solve a specific problem, and can you find special people in the crowd to solve a problem who have never been asked before? The power of the crowd has been explored through DARPA's Network Challenge (commonly referred to as the Red Balloon Challenge) in which 10 large red weather balloons were placed at undisclosed locations across the US for one day. Finding people in the crowd who can contribute greatly has been explored through a recent DARPA sponsored experiment called the Shredder Challenge. In this test, the winning solution was not resolved by the "power of the crowd," but by finding, in the crowd, those special people who may have never been asked the question. Many thought the task impossible, but it turned out that they had been asking the wrong people. An obstacle to fully empowering the crowd is the need for software programmers. DARPA has pushed to develop tools that allow ordinary people to solve complex problems. The program RealWorld gave tools to U.S. soldiers to allow them to create their own mission-specific simulations, without expertise in computer programming. Those tools have now been used to build aircraft, medical, and neurological simulators. John Markoff has referred to DARPA as an "Agency of Wonder" -- join us to find out why. [Recorded July 24, 2012] Transforming Music: From Guitar Hero to Robotic Opera & Beyond http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFKzBvInaCY "Music exerts its power when we are actively engaged, not when we listen subliminally. For this reason, I have been working with my group at the MIT Media Lab to create musical tools -- often with specially designed technologies -- that enable everyone to participate directly in music-making, regardless of background." Tod Machover "Tod Machover is the only person I am aware of who contributes on a world-class level to both the technology of music creation and to music itself. Even within these two distinct areas, his contributions are remarkably diverse, and of exquisite quality". Ray Kurzweil Join us for an evening with musician, inventor and educator Tod Machover, the Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music & Media at the MIT Media Lab, where he directs the Opera of the Future Group. An influential composer, he has been praised for creating music that breaks traditional artistic and cultural boundaries; his music has been performed and commissioned by some of the world's most important performers and ensembles. He has also created the technologies behind Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Machover's opera "Death and the Powers" premiered in Monte Carlo in the fall 2010. The project was developed by a creative team of international artists, designers, writers and theatrical luminaries, as well as by an interdisciplinary team of Media Lab graduate and undergraduate students. Powers features a robotic, animatronic stage -- the first of its kind -- that gradually "comes alive" as the opera's main character. The Museum's John Hollar moderated a fascinating conversation with Tod - the son of a noted piano teacher and a computer graphics pioneer - who is using technology to revolutionize music. [Recorded: June 27, 2012] -- Dag Spicer | Senior Curator | Computer History Museum Editorial Board | Annals of the History of Computing 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. | Mountain View CA 94043 Tel: +1 650 810 1035 | Fax: +1 650 810 1055 Twitter: @ComputerHistory FB: facebook.com/computerhistory Technology married with the humanities makes our hearts sing. -- Steve Jobs