Apple used to promote their products with the slogan ‘It just works’; except for thousands of owners of Apple’s latest laptops, it doesn’t work at all. Excited buyers of Apple’s latest MacBook and MacBook Pro computers have been complaining that if they plug their laptops into existing monitors – including Apple’s own CinemaDisplay range, they see an error when trying to play high definition movies.

PowerBook.
[image by gomi, some rights reserved]

Mac users were bitten by High Definition Content Protection (HDCP); an industry-standard Digital Rights Management (DRM) system designed to prevent the piracy of high definition movies. Under HDCP, the player of a movie scrambles the content before transmitting it down the cable to the television set or monitor. At the other end, the display device unscrambles the signal so that it can be displayed correctly. HDCP requires that both the player and the display contain specialised circuitry perform the complex encryption / decryption process, and this is where the new Macs have had problems. Although the latest Macs all contain HDCP chips, none of Apple’s monitors (with one exception introduced last month) have them.

Apple’s solution is for users to replace almost-new monitors with those coming with HDCP. At the same time, Apple is publicising just how green the company is with low-emission displays, less packaging and reduced pollution. Clearly something doesn’t add up. HDCP is becoming increasingly common on computers; so many more people are going to be affected by this problem in the near future. Consumers are going to have to either accept restrictions on their use of their computers or pay out for even more hardware.

HDCP only exists because of something I’ve mentioned a couple of times before; copyright. To briefly recap; copyright is an 18th Century legal concept that protects an inventor or artist by giving them the exclusive right to reproduce their work for a limited period of time. At the end of the copyright period, the work passes into the public domain where it can be reproduced by anyone. Copyright was designed to balance the interests of creators and consumers alike; the creator benefits by being the only person authorised to sell their creation, society benefits because works in the public domain can be used by anyone no matter how rich or poor.

The 1710 UK law that created the concept of copyright dictated that works would be protected for 14 years from the date of publication; after which the author could apply for a copyright extension for a further 14 years. However, in no circumstances could the copyright term extend beyond 28 years. Since then, there has been an almost inexorable increase in the length of copyright. Copyright terms in the United Kingdom are almost uniquely complicated. Rather than adopt a single period of copyright, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988) lays down a series of copyright terms for different media, depending on the type of media, the date of publication and the country of origin. Broadly, they are as follows:

• for printed materials, the term is 25 years from the date of publication;
• broadcast material (such as television or radio programmes) created in the UK are protected for 50 years from the date of first broadcast;
• audio materials are copyright for 50 years from the time they were first recorded;
• copyright for the composition of dramatic works such as movies, novels, music, literature, art or plays lasts for 70 years after the death of the author or director. If more than one person was responsible, the 70 year period extends from the time of the death of the last creator.

However, copyright terms outside the UK may differ; some works that are still under copyright in the UK are no longer copyright in the United States. This produces some interesting legal questions; Project Gutenberg is an endeavour to release out-of-copyright books in electronic formats. Based in the United States it includes many titles that are still copyright in the UK – but which can be downloaded for free by British users!

Conversely, one area where the United States has much longer copyright terms is in the field of sound and vision – reflecting American predominance of music, television and video. The most recent change in American copyright was the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 which gave corporations the ability to protect their works for 120 years after the date they were created or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier. The law is known to its opponents as The Mickey Mouse Protection Act because it is the second time American law has changed just as the first cartoons featuring Disney’s most famous character were about to become public property.

Mickey Mouse was made public in 1928 (although the cartoonist Hugh Harman drew some sketches as far back as 1925) and originally protected by a 56 year copyright period. In 1976, a few years before the term on these early animations expired, a new copyright act was introduced, increasing American corporate copyright to 75 years – effectively pushing Mickey’s protection into the 21st Century. Then, just as Mickey’s extended term was about to expire, the CTEA was passed ensuring the original Mickey Mouse cartoons would not enter the public domain before 2020 at the very earliest.

Mickey Mouse is almost unique in copyright history in that the character is still a significant revenue earner for Disney. The vast majority of copyrighted works make almost all of their income in the first few years after publication. However, we should not be misled into thinking that it is only copyright that protects Mickey Mouse; Disney have registered their mascot as a trademark, a legal concept which lasts forever provided it is used. Even if the early Mickey Mouse cartoons were to enter the public domain, the character itself is protected – no one apart from Disney would be able to create new Mickey Mouse cartoons.

The same applies to music; much of the pressure for copyright extension in the UK has come from artists such as Cliff Richard and Sir Paul McCartney whose biggest hits were in the 1950s and 1960s. The copyright that is about to expire on these artists is the recording copyright; not the copyright they hold as the creator of a particular piece of music. Sir Paul McCartney will hold the rights to his composition up to and beyond his death and he and his estate will continue to benefit from 'Yellow Submarine' for decades to come. It’s very hard to see any benefits for consumers in the extension of copyright; but it is clear that large publishing companies can make considerable amounts of money by protecting relatively ancient works; if only to stifle competition.

Sadly there is now pressure inside the UK to follow the American copyright extension and increase the copyright term on sound recordings. This is something of a reversal for the British government. Between 2005 and 2006, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, commissioned Sir Andrew Gowers to review the state of copyright in the United Kingdom. Somewhat against expectations, the so-called Gowers Report proved to be extremely radical. As well as proposing that British consumers should have a legal right to make recordings of purchased music (such as ripping an MP3 from a CD).

Firstly, it reported that the lower copyright term in the UK compared to that in the US did not appear to disadvantage British artists. Almost without exception, the vast majority of a title’s income was made in the first years after publication; revenues quickly tailed off into insignificance, and in time, might actually be worth less than a company spent protecting its rights. The Gowers Report estimated that the average CD makes two-thirds of its income in the first six years of its life – well within the existing term;

Secondly, the Gower’s report argued that copyright should not be altered retrospectively – that is, if copyright were to be extended, the new term should only apply to works created after the date the new law took effect.

The day after the Gowers Report was published, the music industry protested vigorously in a Financial Times advertisement signed by 4,000 performers – or at least apparently signed by 4,000 performers; several of the signatories, including Lonnie Donegan and Freddie Garrity had inconveniently died long before the Gowers report was commissioned, let alone published.

Sadly, it appears the government is back-peddling on the enlightened view of the Gowers Report and favours a future much more beneficial to the music and video industry. In part this is because of pressure from the European Union to harmonise copyright terms across the Union and in line with the American term of 95 years. The EU proposals are being opposed by some consumer groups and online advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Open Rights Group who are arguing that any further extension of copyright will affect consumers' rights and all of our rights to freedom of expression. A pan-European petition and lobbying process is targetting Members of the European Parliament in the hope of persuading them to block any increase in EU copyright terms. But even if that battle is won, it looks almost certain that the British government will try to increase copyright in this country. In a recent speech, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham told an audience of music professionals:

'There is a moral case for performers benefiting from their work throughout their entire lifetime.

'That is why I have been working with John Denham, my opposite number in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, to consider the arguments for an extension of copyright term for performers from the current 50 years.  An extension to match more closely a performer’s expected lifetime, perhaps something like 70 years, for example, given that most people make their best work in their 20s and 30s.'

Andrew Gowers replied in an acid column in the Financial Times: 'As political speeches go, this is pretty silly. A moral case? You might just as well say sportspeople have a moral case to a pension at 30.'

It seems clear that the government has already decided that British law must be made to accommodate the views of the music industry. Certainly people in the business were delighted by Burnham’s speech. The head of UK Music, Feargal Sharkey said, ‘At this critical time of change, the creative industries have never been more vital to this nation's future prosperity. Today's announcement regarding term extension is a clear sign that Government, like everyone in our industry, is committed to ensuring that UK music retains its status as the very best in the world.’

The head of the British Phonographic Institute, Geoff Taylor said: 'Copyright is the lifeblood of our creative economy and we are delighted that the government is recognising this by supporting an extension of copyright term for British musicians and labels. Copyright stimulates investment in musical talent and encourages innovation. Thousands of recording artists, hundreds of music companies and all British music fans will benefit from fairer copyright term'.

The use of the word ‘fairer’ is very interesting. There is no way that extending copyright is fair to the customer. When pressed about copyright extension, one music industry executive said that any increase in length of protection would be matched by the companies opening up their archives and reissuing old material. It sounds good, until you realize that if copyright was left unchanged the companies would be forced to release it into the public domain where it would be free for everyone!

Mr. Taylor seems to have forgotten that copyright is a balance between the rights of the individual and wider society. Consumers can reasonably be expected to obey copyright law provided they see it as fair; but when users are faced with high prices, limited distribution, platform lock-in and crippling DRM software, who can honestly be surprised when they turn to piracy?

More from Open2

Listen to Ethics Bites on the rights and wrongs of copyright

About the author

Mike Richards joined the Open University in 1996 to help trial teaching over the Internet. Since then he has taught courses ranging from an introduction to robots to the engineering works of Leonardo da Vinci; but has spent most of his time writing about security - everything from the Enigma machines to e-shopping. He is currently working on a new course exploring the world of ubiquitous computers; imagine a world where computers so small and cheap they can be put in everyday objects - smartphones today, smartclothes tomorrow.

Subscribe to Mike Richards's posts

 

So it’s time for me to eat crow, or depending on your taste, humble pie. Not so long ago I was confidently predicting a drawn out battle between two high definition disk formats; HD-DVD and Blu-ray. HD-DVD, backed by Toshiba and the DVD standards body offered cheaper players but only a limited range of titles; Sony’s Blu-ray was more expensive but had a larger library of movies. It seemed likely that the two formats would continue to co-exist, confusing purchasers who would continue to vote with their feet and carry on buying DVDs. Suddenly everything changed; HD-DVD is dead. On February 19th, Toshiba announced that it would immediately stop manufacturing HD-DVD players and recorders. In little over a month, HD-DVD had gone from a viable format for the future of movies to a technological cul-de-sac. What had gone wrong?

Two factors conspired to kill HD-DVD. The first was Sony’s technological wonder, the Playstation 3, which comes with a built-in Blu-ray player. After a troubled launch, the PS3 has begun to notch up impressive sales with more than 10 million sold to date (more than a million in the UK alone) – ten times the number of HD-DVD players that were sold during its lifetime. People may not have bought PS3 for movies, but they have certainly been experimenting with Blu-ray disks whose sales have been steadily climbing. The second nail in the coffin of HD-DVD was the decision by Warner Brothers to cease issuing new movies on the format. This left only Universal Studios and Dreamworks as committed to HD-DVD exclusivity for their movies. Within days of the Warner announcement; Woolworths in the UK and the colossal American chain WalMart said they were abandoning HD-DVD; the writing was on the wall for the format.

In the US and Japan, many retailers are compensating purchasers of HD-DVD players, either with cold, hard cash or with credits against the purchase of a Blu-ray player. On the software front, things are grim for HD-DVDs with most studios cancelling future releases; but HD-DVD users are enjoying a fire sale of existing titles as retailers dump their stocks, at the moment disks can be had for as little as £6 apiece – cheaper than DVDs! Existing HD-DVD players will continue to play regular DVDs, and in the event of one failing, Toshiba has stockpiled at least 8 years worth of spare parts. If, like me, you bought into HD-DVD, you will be able to enjoy it for many years to come.

The backers of Blu-ray, most notably Sony and the movie studios, are the victors. Toshiba might have lost this war, but it can easily afford to write off the costs of HD-DVD. The real losers in this war may well be consumers, and that is because we’re going to have fewer ways of enjoying our entertainment.

Region coding is part of a trend in media and computer software known as digital rights management (DRM) that aims to control how media can be used. DRM allows the publisher of a title to say where it can be played, on what machines, if it can be copied to another device, even whether the recording will evaporate after being played. You’ve almost certainly encountered DRM every time you play a DVD. When you first put a DVD into a player you will see a number of warnings about where the disk can be used and the consequences for pirating its contents. You may have noticed you cannot skip past these and get on with the movie – the DRM on the disk temporarily disables the functions that allow you to fast forward and go to the next track. The DRM on the disk also prevents you from copying its contents and from playing disks bought in one part of the world from working inside the UK. You can find a map of these ‘region codes’ on Wikipedia.

The DRM on DVDs was introduced as a reaction to the threat of piracy. Older, analogue technologies – such as audio and videotape can be easily copied, but the process is slow and the number of copies that can be created is very small. Crucially, as tape is repeatedly duplicated, the quality of the copies decreases – effectively limiting the number of pirated copies that could be circulated. However, when information is stored in digital form – such as on a DVD – it can be perfectly replicated an infinite number of times. These perfect copies can then either be written on to a blank disk, or distributed across the World over the Internet.

DVD’s DRM is a fairly elderly technology known as the Content Scrambling System (CSS). It was broken long ago and pirated versions of DVDs, stripped of all their DRM (often without the infuriating anti-piracy adverts found on genuine disks), can be found in most towns and cities and circulating on the Internet. When movie studios began to plan the move to high definition disks, they chose more powerful forms of DRM. Blu-ray’s protection is called BD+ and is generally thought to be superior to the AACS system found on HD-DVD as it allows manufacturers to continually upgrade their DRM against attacks. Unlike HD-DVD, Blu-ray also uses region coding to stop users playing and importing disks from other parts of the world. It is widely believed that the movie studios put their weight behind Blu-ray because of its stronger DRM, both because it offered better protection from piracy, and because it served to block the traffic in cheap disks from places such as the United States and Hong Kong.

DRM is not only found on DVDs, it is used by games companies to protect their products, in satellite and cable set-top boxes, on most music bought from online stores, even in the expensive HDMI cables needed to connect to high-definition television sets. Although there are a huge number of DRM technologies being used by various companies, most of them share a common technological root known as encryption; a field of mathematics concerned with scrambling information to shield it from prying eyes. Crucially, encryption is always reversible – that is the scrambled material can be restored to its original state by performing a decryption. Media documents controlled by DRM are distributed in an encrypted form and can only be decrypted by a user if they own both a decryption program and a second piece of information known as the key. The decryption is performed by dedicated microprocessors in the player using decryption keys stored in the player’s memory. If you use a software application such as Apple’s iTunes to play media files, your computer’s processor performs the decryption and the keys are stored in hidden files on your computer’s hard disk.

Some DRM schemes such as Apple’s FairPlay and Microsoft’s PlaysForSure tie media files to particular authorised computers. When you authorise a computer, the player software extracts information from that machine which might include information including your name, your registered email address, the unique serial number of machine’s CPU, the serial number of the operating system and so on. This information is used to generate the key needed to decrypt the media file. For both FairPlay and PlaysForSure users are restricted to playing a file on no more than five computers; if you try to play a file on an unauthorised computer or to authorise a sixth computer you will be unable to do so.

In Microsoft’s PlaysForSure scheme, machines need to be reauthorized when users upgrade from one version of Windows to another. Information about the machine is gathered, sent across the Internet to the PlaysForSure servers and a new key issued. And this process is now causing a problem because Microsoft is abandoning PlaysForSure in favour of its own Zune music player.

PlaysForSure was an attempt by Microsoft to eat into Apple’s dominance of the music player market. Rather than build a single device to compete against the iPod, Microsoft produced the PlaysForSure standard. Any manufacturer could then build devices PlaysForSure compliant devices with Microsoft collecting a small fee for each machine sold. Music, wrapped in DRM, could then be bought from a number of online stores that supplied music in Microsoft’s Windows Media Format. The idea was that competition between manufactures would quickly drive the price of their players below that of the iPod and users would gradually switch to the more affordable product, allowing Microsoft to steal Apple’s crown.

For any number of reasons, PlaysForSure was a failure and have Microsoft switched to copying Apple’s business model. They designed their own music player, the Zune (so far only available in America) that plays music bought through the dedicated Zune Marketplace online store. Rather than have Zune compete against iPod and PlaysForSure, Microsoft has chosen to kill PlaysForSure by simply switching off the authorisation servers. As soon as the servers are switched off it will no longer be possible to get new PlaysForSure keys from Microsoft. Anyone buying a new machine or upgrading their version of Windows after that date will find they can’t play music purchased from Microsoft’s old MSN Music store. Microsoft originally intended to switch the servers off on August 31st 2008, but after a furious customer reaction, have since extended the scheme, now excitingly branded 'Certified for Windows Vista', until 2011. Hot on Microsoft’s heels, the troubled Yahoo! corporation announced that it would be shutting down the DRM servers that authenticated its Unlimited Music Store from September 2008. This time, following angry complaints from customers, Yahoo! agreed to refund the purchase cost of any music bought through Unlimited.

DRM is turning into a public-relations disaster for media companies. Customers are increasingly chaffing against the artificial restraints placed on their use of products, and more and more of them are realising that DRM only affects law-abiding customers. Pay for a DVD or Blu-ray and you can’t make a copy for your laptop or your iPod, you’re forced to sit through adverts, you can’t even buy a cheaper version of the disk from another country. Pirate copies of TV programmes, music, movies and video games are available on the Internet; they look identical but have none of the restrictions. Piracy exists because it serves consumers’ desires and until the movie studios make their official disks every bit as attractive as the illegal copies, piracy will continue to thrive.

But it is possible that DRM is nothing more than a passing phase in the media industry. Amazon in the US and iTunes now allow people to purchase MP3 versions of music which can be freely copied between devices. As a testament to its popularity, it took just a few months for Amazon to become the second-largest retailer of music in the United States after the iTunes Music Store and it is growing at a much faster rate than the Apple Store. Despite fears from the industry, there has been no explosion in piracy; just many more satisfied customers and an expanding marketplace. Perhaps it’s time for Hollywood to wake up and begin treating the people who pay its wages like responsible adults.

About the author

Mike Richards joined the Open University in 1996 to help trial teaching over the Internet. Since then he has taught courses ranging from an introduction to robots to the engineering works of Leonardo da Vinci; but has spent most of his time writing about security - everything from the Enigma machines to e-shopping. He is currently working on a new course exploring the world of ubiquitous computers; imagine a world where computers so small and cheap they can be put in everyday objects - smartphones today, smartclothes tomorrow.

Subscribe to Mike Richards's posts

 

According to Google, 'iPhone' was the most googled gadget in 2007 as well as the fastest rising search term across the World. Clearly Apple's entry into the mobile phone market has grabbed the public's attention. But for all its sleek modernity, the iPhone has a heritage reaching all the way back to the end of the 1960s. Mobile telephones that do more than make calls and send messages are usually lumped together as 'smartphones'. Most smartphones contain a suite of programs such as word processors, image viewing and editing programs, document viewers, media players and so on. Some phones now include GPS that allow the user to find their location, others are relatively powerful games consoles. All of these tasks require powerful microprocessors, needing relatively large amounts of electricity, which call for large powerful batteries, or limit the amount of time the phone can be used before it needs recharging. Smartphones have traditionally been relatively bulky and expensive; and suffer from short battery lives and complicated interfaces. As a result, sales have been disappointing, only accounting for a tiny fraction of mobile telephone sales. 

The iPhone has much less processing power and memory than comparable smartphones and simply can't perform many of the tasks found on these phones. But that doesn't mean the iPhone isn't a smartphone - in fact it might be the first smartphone for the masses, because it is a good example of a thin client computer. Thin clients are something of a step backwards for computers. For the last twenty years, the computers on our desks have become ever more powerful and capable of running ever more sophisticated software; but before then, back in the dark ages of the 1980s and before, most computer users worked at a terminal. The machine they sat in front of did very little work other than accept their typed commands (remember - windows and mice lay far in the future) and display the results. All the hard work would be performed by a large mainframe computer at the end of a length of network cable. In many ways this type of computer never went away - your Web browser does much the same thing as those ancient 1970s terminals, its just that the network now extends all the way around the World and you have a colour screen. When you clicked on the link that brought you to this page, your computer sent a small amount of information (called the URL) to one of open2.net's server computers. The server then gathered all the information needed to build this page - the text of this article, the menu bars, the images, other links and so on - and sent them back to the browser on your computer, which then drew the page you're reading right now. Servers can do much more - an e-commerce server, such as those used by Amazon or eBay, can calculate prices; others can work out tax returns, perform complex statistics or even handle email and word-processing. All you need is a computer capable of sending, receiving and displaying information; and access to a network. Such as a mobile phone. 

Making the iPhone into a thin client means that the phone doesn't do much of the hard work, it doesn't need such a powerful processor, allowing for a smaller, which means a smaller, lighter phone. It also means that Apple don't have to write and support iPhone applications; soon almost anyone will be able to deliver services to iPhone users over the Internet. More applications, will attract yet more iPhone converts and another record year for Apple. A second triumph for the iPhone is that it doesn't behave like other computers. Many companies have tried to squeeze their PC applications on to a handheld device with mixed (but frequently disastrous) results. One example is Windows Mobile (which used to be called Windows CE). When originally designing Windows mobile, Microsoft recognised that the vast majority of computer users are familiar with their Windows operating system and with its interface. They have tried to replicate this experience as far as possible on the vast range of Windows Mobile devices that are on the market. However, Windows was designed for comparatively large, high resolution screens, not the cramped confines of a handheld computer which makes Windows Mobile much less useful than it should be. Recognising the novelty of the iPhone, its designers have built an interface unlike anything else from Apple or any other company. 

A seemingly intractible problem with handheld devices is getting information into the computer. A desktop or laptop computer offers enough room for a keyboard, but pocket-sized devices have no such luxury. Some phones and PDAs such as the Treo and Sony Ericsson P910 have crammed minuscule 'thumb boards' on to their machines, allowing a dextrous user (with reasonable eye sight) to key in text using a single finger or their thumbs. But the tiny keys are awkward and the machines unattractive. Other designers have chosen slide-out or flip-out keyboards which can be made larger, but increase the bulk of the device. Most mobile phones have stuck with the simplest of all options. It is possible to squeeze all the letters of the alphabet on to a conventional telephone keypad by allocating more than one letter to a single numeric button; a single press of '2' will produce an 'A', two presses a 'B', three presses a 'C'; a single press of '3' a 'D' and so on. The buttons can be reasonably large and easy to recognise, but the process of entering anything more than a short SMS message is time consuming and frustrating for many users. 

The iPhone dispenses with buttons in favour of a large liquid crystal display incorporating a touch interface. The keyboard is drawn on the screen with each finger press being recognised as a keystroke. The advantages of a virtual keyboard are many - it can be resized and reoriented to suit the task in hand, alternative character sets for non-English users are easily incorporated and new buttons can be added to the keyboard for specialist purposes such as entering email or Web addresses. Naturally the screen can display and recognise far more than keyboard presses, software designers are free to design intuitive controls for other tasks - photos can be resized by pinching them with two fingers and it is possible to run your finger along a 'shelf' of music tracks just as you might do at home. Intuitive controls make devices much more easy to use, but are extraordinarily hard to design and program. 

The iPhone has proven there is a demand for such interfaces and we can look forward to many similar devices in the future, not just from Apple, but its competitors such as Microsoft and Hitachi. Commentators are almost unanimous that the iPhone is merely the first in a family of small, powerful, easy-to-use, always-on, networked devices, but there a warning from history that Apple will be only too aware of. Fifteen years ago, a high-flying computer company released a revolutionary hand-held computer which promised to change the World. Five years later, the same company teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, in no small part because of this device. The computer was called Newton and the company was called Apple. 

Throughout the 1980s Apple Computers was a stockmarket phenomenon; it had created the market for home computers, brought computers into schools and unveiled the futuristic Macintosh. But the 1990s had seen Apple's share of the PC market inexorably shrink as users switched from Apple towards much cheaper IBM PC compatible machines and increasingly sophisticated versions of Microsoft Windows. Apple was in trouble and needed something new if it were not to be relegated to history. Apple's then CEO, John Sculley had been recruited from Pepsi where he had devised the Pepsi Taste Test that had dramatically increased that company's sales. Sculley was seen as an 'ideas man', and he had just the idea to solve Apple's problem - or rather he knew someone who did. That person was Alan Kay, a brilliant, maverick computer scientist who had joined Apple in 1984 but whose big idea had occurred to him as long ago as 1968. Then, whilst working on his PhD, Alan Kay had invented the future of all computers - not just laptops, but PDAs, games consoles and smartphones. He had conceived the KiddiComp, a book-sized, battery-powered portable networked computer with its own colour graphical display all weighing less than a kilo! The KiddiComp, thankfully renamed as DynaBook, was not a flight of fancy, but an extrapolation of the trends that had allowed NASA to design the Apollo Flight Computer for its Moon missions.
 
A triumph of 1960s technology, the AFC was one of the first computers to use microchips, it weighed almost thirty kilograms and had the same processing power as a modern musical greetings card. But Kay realised chips would become more powerful, smaller, and most of all - cheaper. It was only a matter of waiting for industry to catch up with the DynaBook. The DynaBook remained an intellectual curiosity for almost twenty years until John Sculley heard about Kay's work. At which point he decided the DynaBook would be Apple's salvation. Rebranded as the Knowledge Navigator, Sculley boasted about founding a $3.5 TRILLION business in personal information devices! Apple immediately set to work publicising the Knowledge Navigator; they employed LucasFilm - most famous for their Star Wars movies, to make a number of corporate videos showing the computer of 2010. The public loved the idea of the Knowledge Navigator, tens of thousands of them bombarded Apple demanding where and when they could buy one. In reality the Knowledge Navigator was decades away, but as stop-gap Apple promised Newton, a revolutionary hand-held computer which users drew on using a stylus. newton would not need a keyboard - it would recognise the users' handwriting. It would be the simplest, most friendly, most practical computer ever built. 

Newton cost billions of dollars to develop and after repeated delays it finally slipped on to the market in 1993 to be met by almost universal disappointment. Newton was the Knowledge Navigator's ugly sibling - no colour screens, no seamless networking, no bowtied butlers. Instead, Newton was slow and buggy - even its handwriting recognition didn't work reliably. Rather than usher in a new generation of computers, Newton became a butt of comedians jokes - even appearing in the comic strip 'Doonesbury' and TV's 'The Simpsons'. Newton limped on until 1998, successive versions improved the software and increased the speed until it was a genuinely useful machine. Newton spawned the eMate, a tiny, rugged computer designed for schoolchildren, it provided inspiration for the Palm personal organiser which went on to become a billion dollar business and a 'must-have' business accessory - but none of that money went back to Apple. 

Newton was so futuristic that a decade after its cancellation, the handwriting software is still the best ever included in a consumer product - so much so that tens of thousands of the venerable machines are still in use. However Newton was doomed; Apple of the 1990s appeared to be in a state of terminal decline; news stories were dominated by the company's ever-shrinking sales and terrible reliability. When costs had to be cut, the unprofitable Newton line just one of many to be discontinued in favour of the company's eventual saviours - the iMac and iPod. In 2007 Apple changed its name from Apple Computers to Apple Inc. recognising that the Macintosh is no longer its sole breadwinner. The company is increasingly dependent on revenues from other devices such as iPod and iPhone and is looking to expand its range into new markets. After a forty year delay, Alan Kay's DynaBook might just have arrived.

About the author

Mike Richards joined the Open University in 1996 to help trial teaching over the Internet. Since then he has taught courses ranging from an introduction to robots to the engineering works of Leonardo da Vinci; but has spent most of his time writing about security - everything from the Enigma machines to e-shopping. He is currently working on a new course exploring the world of ubiquitous computers; imagine a world where computers so small and cheap they can be put in everyday objects - smartphones today, smartclothes tomorrow.

Subscribe to Mike Richards's posts