The state of California made October 16th “Steve Jobs Day,” and on October 19th, the company he co-founded with Steve Wozniak celebrated his life on campus in Cupertino. The photo here, provided by Apple, shows CEO Tim Cook addressing throngs of people who came to the memorial.
Visualized: Apple’s celebration of Steve Jobs’ life in Cupertino originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Steve Jobs was the man most often associated with Apple, but another Steve played a big part in the formation of the company, and Mr. Wozniak has some kind words about his friend and former business partner. Well said, Woz.
Steve Wozniak on Steve Jobs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
You can stop worrying about the robot apocalypse now. Steve Wozniak has weighed in on the matter, and it turns out we’ve pretty much lost. The Apple co-founder / dancing star discussed the subject with an Australian business crowd, mapping out a future in which artificial intelligence equals our own, and mankind’s own input is meaningless. In other words, “We’re going to become the pets, the dogs of the house.” Woz added that his take on the whole war thing was, in part, a joke — it’s the part that wasn’t that we’re worried about. Though if our own dogs’ existences are any indication, things could be a lot worse.
[Thanks, Shaun]
Steve Wozniak calls us all dogs, in a nice way originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Jun 2011 07:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
There’s little doubt that today’s smartphones are pocketable computers — they’re equally or more powerful than the desktop PCs of yesteryear — but what about dumbphones? Well, in US v. Kramer, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals just held that a Motorola Motorazr V3 fits the federal statutory definition for a computer — and quoted Woz in the opinion: “Everything has a computer in it nowadays.” Seems a bit silly to call a RAZR a computer, but courts can only interpret existing laws, not make new ones — and US law says a computer is “an electronic, magnetic, optical, electrochemical, or other high speed data processing device performing logical, arithmetic, or storage functions.” Because this was the first time a federal appeals court had ruled on the issue, the Eighth Circuit set a precedent that other courts are likely to follow. And yes, the court is aware such a definition may include microwaves and coffee makers, and informed Congress that it should change the law if it doesn’t like it. Regardless of whether you agree, this interpretation added some jail time for a guy who pled guilty to trying to engage in sexual activity with a minor, so the mild absurdity of it all is fine by us. Somewhere Chris Hansen is smiling.
Eighth Circuit declares RAZR a computer under federal law originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The Engadget Show: Xperia Play / PlayStation phone previewed, ‘shoulder flippers’ in tow (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 19:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Humans, keep your eyes tuned to this post — because at 6:00PM ET, we’ll be starting The Engadget Show live with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, joining us for a evening of frank, eye-opening and all-around awesome conversation. There’ll be mind-blowing devices, crazy giveaways, and much, much more! We’ve even got music from Zen Albatross. You seriously don’t want to miss it.
Continue reading The Engadget Show Live! with Steve Wozniak
The Engadget Show Live! with Steve Wozniak originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Jan 2011 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
This week in consumer electronics was full of culture. Or maybe it was full of color — we’re not quite sure what the difference might be, but there was a lot of weird / cool news in the CEO, handheld gaming, and tablet worlds. The point is, we’ve got another weird / cool podcast on our hands that you haven’t listened to yet and you need to take care of that, like, five minutes ago.
Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, #1 Digitimes bestselling author Paul Miller
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Superstition
00:04:15 – Steve Jobs takes medical leave from Apple, Tim Cook taking over daily operations in his absence
00:10:22 – Apple turns in record Q1: $6b profit on $26.7b revenue, 16.2m iPhones sold
00:23:20 – Apple’s invested in a ‘very strategic’ $3.9b component supply agreement, but what is it?
00:25:10 – Asahi Glass introduces Dragontrail for consumer electronics, puts the Gorilla on notice (video)
00:25:48 – Larry Page taking over as Google CEO, Eric Schmidt will remain as Executive Chairman
00:35:30 – Google Voice now lets you port your own phone number, maybe (update)
00:44:53 – Exclusive: HP / Palm’s webOS tablets — pictures, plans, and more
00:45:42 – HP / Palm tablet to feature Touchstone dock, cloud storage, Beats audio and Tap-to-Share smartphone integration
00:49:30 – HP calls us out, implies it’s got even better scoops at February webOS event
00:53:20 – HP’s first webOS tablet may start shipping in March, fulfill longstanding promise
01:06:00 – Motorola Xoom launching February 17th at Best Buy (update: priced at $700)
01:06:22 – Motorola Xoom priced at $800 at a minimum, according to Verizon leak
01:14:52 – Nintendo 3DS coming to US March 27th for $249.99, Europe first on March 25th (video)
01:19:10 – Live from Nintendo’s 3DS preview with Reggie Fils-Aime
01:23:22 – Bloomberg: Sony PSP2 to debut next week, PlayStation Phone at MWC
01:23:47 – This fan-made PSP redesign is sexy
01:25:15 – PSP2 to be based on iPhone-esque PowerVR GPU, rival original Xbox in power?
01:27:52 – The Engadget Show returns next Sunday with Steve Wozniak!
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Engadget Podcast 230 – 01.24.2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
With new smartphones, laptops and tablets every day, it’s easy to lose sight of how we got here in the first place. Steve Wozniak led a press tour Thursday morning highlighting some key gadgets that deeply influenced his work.
“We’ve gone through more change in a single lifetime than probably any other time in history,” the Woz said.
He should know. As a kid, Wozniak fiddled with minicomputer circuit boards at home, when the idea of having a computer in your own house was little more than a wild-eyed fantasy.
Everything from punch-card machines to old-school supercomputers, and from disk stacks to transistor radios, inspired an ambitious geek who would eventually create the Apple I computer that launched a PC revolution.
And while Woz eventually got forced out of Apple, his hometown hasn’t forgotten him: There’s a street in San Jose named Woz Way, after the town’s favorite ultranerd.
IBM 026 Punch-Card Machine
1949
Back when computers still weighed more than 100 pounds, they read punched cards whose holes represented digital information for computer programs. Introduced in 1949, IBM’s 026 punch-card machine became a standard device in offices that relied on punch cards.
Steve Wozniak, who led a tour through the Computer History Museum’s collection of ancient gadgets, reminisced about working with punch-card machines when he was studying computer science in Berkeley. Back then, students would have to wait 40 minutes just to get their turn to punch cards for their programs.
Stibitz 1-Bit Model K Adder
1980 (replica)
Bell Labs researcher George Stibitz assembled a calculator in 1936 out of scrapped relays, capable of adding two binary digits. He made it on his kitchen table, hence the name Model K.
“We wouldn’t have our iPhones today, if we didn’t start out with stuff like this,” Steve Wozniak said.
IBM RAMAC Actuator and Disk Stack
1956
It looks like a giant air purifier, but the contraption shown here was the heart of the world’s first disk drive. It contains 50 24-inch disks stacked parallel, spinning at 1,200 rpm. It can hold 5 megabytes of information. The disk stack was made in San Jose, Steve Wozniak’s hometown.
Control Data Corp. 6600 Supercomputer
1964
Computer designer Seymour Cray harvested a career out of building the world’s fastest computers. The CDC 6600 supercomputer, pictured above, was 10 times faster than any computer at the time. Steve Wozniak said U.C. Berkeley owned a CDC 6600 while he was studying there, and at the time it was also the world’s most expensive computer – about $100 million in today’s money.
Data General Nova, Serial No. 1
1969
The Nova was one of the first minicomputers, unlocking the dream of having a computer small enough to fit in our own homes. Digital Equipment Corporation was a business selling minicomputers, and some engineers who were unhappy at the company resigned to form a competing firm, Data General. The engineers believed they could do a better computer based on a 16-bit design, and their resulting creation was the Nova.
Steve Wozniak remembered that as a kid, he found a manual on assembling a minicomputer, which inspired him to try to create one of his own. He began tinkering with making circuit boards with as few chips as possible.
“My dad asked, how are you going to do that? One of those computers costs as much as a house,” Wozniak said. “I said, ‘I’ll live in an apartment.’”
Honeywell Kitchen Computer
1969
Weighing over 100 pounds, the Honeywell Kitchen Computer’s primary purpose was storing recipes.
It may look like a joke – and there’s no evidence that Honeywell sold any of these machines, despite a prime listing in the Nieman Marcus catalog. But living inside the swooping lines of the cabinet was a Honeywell 316 minicomputer.
That’s the predecessor of the Honeywell 516 minicomputer that powered the first node of Arpanet, predecessor to the internet.
So in a way, it all goes back to the kitchen after all.
Regency TR-1 Transistor Radio
1954
The Regency TR-1 was one of the first transistor radios to go mainstream. It sold 100,000 units and introduced the word “transistor” to the public.
Repeating a phrase that he used several times during the tour, Steve Wozniak said without this technology, portable media players would never have come into existence – and without that, we wouldn’t have iPhones today.
Pong
1972
Steve Wozniak saw a crude version of the game Pong in a bowling alley and said he had to have something like it. He spent five nonstop days to make his own version of the classic game.
When he was done, Steve Jobs showed Woz’s version of Pong to Atari to get himself a job there.
Woz was working at Hewlett-Packard and had no interest in leaving his dream job. But Atari hired him as a contractor to develop the game Breakout.
Apple 1
1975
Steve Wozniak built the Apple I completely by hand and showed it off at the Homebrew Computer Club, a computer hobbyist club in Palo Alto. The Apple I didn’t work on its own: It was a fully assembled circuit board with about 60 chips that required owners to get their own case, power supply, display and so on before they could use it as a computer.
An idealistic Woz wasn’t interested in making money, and he gave away the instructions to build the Apple I for free.
“I wanted to accelerate the world’s advancement into a social revolution,” Woz said. “Eventually Steve Jobs came and said, ‘Why don’t we build it for them?’”
The author of this post can be contacted at tips@gizmodo.com
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Steve Wozniak’s 9 Favorite Gadgets Woz
Some comments attributed to Steve Wozniak caused quite a kerfuffle this morning — according to Dutch paper De Telegraaf, Woz said that “Android phones have more features,” which would help Google’s OS become the dominant smartphone platform. Obviously, a statement like that from Apple’s co-founder rocketed around the web, and it’s set off yet another round of furious Android-vs-iOS debate. There’s just one problem, though: Woz never said anything like that. Turns out Woz is an Engadget commenter just like you, and when we saw that he’d left a clarification on the post, we called him up for a quick chat to sort everything out.
Woz says he gave the De Telegraaf reporter a lengthy demonstration of voice commands on iOS and Android, pointed out that Android offered the ability to say “Navigate to Joe’s Diner,” and suggested that Apple would catch up through its purchases of Siri and Poly9. According to Steve, that’s about it — he says he’d “never” say that Android was better than iOS, and that “Almost every app I have is better on the iPhone.” Woz did say he lightly prognosticated that Android would become more popular “based on what I’ve read,” but that he expects Android “to be a lot like Windows… I’m not trying to put Android down, but I’m not suggesting it’s better than iOS by any stretch of the imagination. But it can get greater marketshare and still be crappy.” He’s not shy, that Woz — listen to him say it all for yourself after the break.
Continue reading Exclusive: Woz misquoted! ‘Almost every app that I have is better on the iPhone’
Exclusive: Woz misquoted! ‘Almost every app that I have is better on the iPhone’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 13:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, has never been one to mince words. Today’s no different as demonstrated in an interview with the Dutch-language De Telegraaf newspaper in The Netherlands. The first revelation is an admission that Apple had collaborated with a well-known Japanese consumer electronics company in 2004 to develop a phone that was ahead of its time. Woz is quoted as saying that while Apple was content with the quality, it “wanted something that could amaze the world.” Obviously, the phone was shelved followed by Apple’s announcement of the iPhone in January 2007.
Woz then moved on to the topic of Android saying that Android smartphones, not the iPhone, would become dominant, noting that the Google OS is likely to win the race similarly to the way that Windows ultimately dominated the PC world. Woz stressed that the iPhone, “Has very few weak points. There aren’t any real complaints and problems. In terms of quality, the iPhone is leading.” However, he then conceded that, “Android phones have more features,” and offer more choice for more people. Eventually, he thinks that Android quality, consistency, and user satisfaction will match iOS.
Steve closed the interview with a jab at Nokia calling it, “the brand from a previous generation” suggesting that the boys from Finland should introduce a new brand for a young consumer. Hmm, so we guess he’ll be in line for the launch of the MeeGo-based N9 then?
[Thanks, Nguyen T.]
Steve Wozniak: Android will be the dominant smartphone platform originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 06:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
