The Intelligent Encyclopedia from 1982

In 1982, Bob Stein, Alan Kay, and Glenn Keane came up with several illustrated scenarios for a concept called the Intelligent Encyclopedia, a ubiquitous always-on electronic encyclopedia.

The most interesting thing for me today about these images is that although we foresaw that people would be accessing information wirelessly (notice the little antenna on the device in the “tide pool” image), we completely missed the most important aspect of the network — that it was going to connect people to other people.

This hits a lot closer to the mark than many futuristic scenarios I’ve seen. What’s interesting is that many of the panels shown would have seemed off target just two years ago before the introduction of the iPad and certainly five years ago before the iPhone. (via @steveportigal)

• Alan Kay
• Bob Stein
• Glenn Keane
• iPad