Word: planeteers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Coming up with an idea way ahead of its time is no small feat, but thinking of one just ahead of its time can often be the bigger challenge (just ask John "Newton" Sculley and Steve "NeXT Computer" Jobs). Back in 1994, when Alain Rossmann launched Unwired Planet to develop software for sending Internet news and information to cellular phones, he could only hope the industry would follow his lead sooner rather than later...
...have to pick someone in your group," he tells Mundy, "whose task it is to track Navio full time. They're the ones I worry about. Sega is an investor. They may be willing to feed us info." Then he moves on to other competitors. "What about the Planet TV guys?" Mundy explains that they are focusing on video games, "a platform we haven't prioritized." Gates counters: "We can work with them now, but they have other ambitions. So we'll be competitive with them down the line...
This biophilic notion of a living planet--of Gaia--partly converges, oddly enough, with a kind of technophilia that is indigenous to the Internet. The central notion of techno- sophy--that life is a technology--has as its flip side the idea that technology is a form of life. Strange as this sounds, it is an increasingly common refrain in cyberculture. If the idea is valid--if indeed fiber optics are living tissue--then it is easier to think of Earth in the Age of Internet as a coherent living system, a giant organism complete with a giant brain. Gaia...
...earth, circulating in underground caverns and emerging as geysers and mountain springs, and infusing all of life--an idea he often incorporated in his art by painting curls of hair as if they were twirls of a whirlpool. In a premonition of the Gaia hypothesis, which compares the planet to a living organism, he writes poetically, "We may say that the earth has a spirit of growth, and that its flesh is the soil; its bones are the successive strata of the rocks...its cartilage is the tufa stone; its blood the veins of its waters...
...SuperSonic Ear $20; Wild Planet Toys; ages 5 and up The idea is for kids to use this groovy parabolic-dish gun and headset to listen in on sounds of nature--caterpillars munching, woodland creatures scuttling--they wouldn't normally be able to hear. Neat concept. There's potential for danger--like accidentally pointing the dish at speakers while big brother is playing Metallica. But used sensibly (on nature--Yeah, right!), it could be lots...