1980s, a young author named Neal Stephenson was working on a project to create a graphic novel. He typed in some code on his Apple Macintosh II and a pair of spherical mirrors appeared on the screen, hanging in space. To make the images look more realistic, the code he used calculated how light bounced off the objects in the frame, so each mirror featured on it a convincing reflection of the other.
“And so I got to thinking about what could make it cheap,” he says. Television had started out as an expensive curiosity and then became cheap and accessible by becoming a mass-broadcast medium. Mr Stephenson began to imagine what might be necessary to bring about a similar transition for 3computer graphics. “I was trying to imagine what a popular medium would look like, centred on the use of the 3graphics technology.
The impact of Mr Stephenson’s idea on the real, non-fictional world has been profound. Ask anyone working to create interactive 3That explains why Mr Stephenson is also a sought-after futurist in Silicon Valley. Over the years he has been tapped by firms including Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’s space-launch company, and most recently as “chief futurist” for Magic Leap, a startup making augmented-reality glasses.
That's the one who wrote 'Snowcrash'? Will not be surprised if those sociopaths will be inspired by it.
People need a little more good news now.
The protagonist of Snow Crash was someone I could really relate to at the time. Half Korean. Holy granola I had no idea how much the world would change and mimic sci-fi. The pace of change will just accelerate now too. It really is exponential. Stephenson is in the top tier.
Whoever drew this, should be modelling dogs instead of men's beards
Don't forget Ready Player One.