Xanadu
Latest
Recommended Reading: the theory of disruptive innovation, the curse of Xanadu and more
Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you'll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read. The Disruption Machine by Jill Lepore, The New Yorker !function(d,i){if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement("script");j.id=i;j.src="https://widgets.getpocket.com/v1/j/btn.js?v=1";var w=d.getElementById(i);d.body.appendChild(j);}}(document,"pocket-btn-js"); There's a lot of different theories about how markets evolve, but that of disruptive innovation has proven quite popular over the last several decades. But if you ask Jill Lepore of the New Yorker it's an incomplete theory. While it's more than capable of explaining why businesses fail it doesn't really account for more complex changes. It's not like the theory of evolution, it's merely "an artifact of history." But it's still an interesting prism through which to view everything from the shift to 5.25-inch floppy disks to the downfall of the American auto industry.
After 54 years as vaporware, the web's oldest ancestor is released
In 1960 Ted Nelson, the man who coined the term "hypertext", began work on his magnum opus -- Xanadu. In late April, after 54 years of development, the complex document builder and viewer was finally released with little to no fanfare at a Chapman University event. The concept behind the software should seem pretty familiar: documents could be embedded with clickable links that led you to directly to the quote or referenced information within another document. Clicking wouldn't close the primary document though, instead all of the source material is displayed simultaneously, shrinking down to stay out of the way, or scaling up for side-by-side comparisons when you need it. Had it not been for an unfortunate series of setbacks, we could have been talking about Ted Nelson as the father of the World Wide Web, instead of Tim Berners-Lee. But a lack of resources, especially money, meant that development dragged on for decades. Nelson doesn't think Xanadu is dead on arrival, though. While it may be too late to conquer the web, he believes it could take on the mighty PDF. The color-coded links and direct connections to reference material could prove quite useful in legal or research documents. Not to mention a handy way to archive web sites.
VC Tuesday: Pop-up Ping-pong
The Virtual Console releases are pretty slim this week in Japan, but still just unlikely enough to show up outside of Japan to make them super interesting. First, Smash Ping Pong, a Nintendo-published Famicom Disk System version of the arcade Konami's Ping Pong. There's something hilarious about playing retro sports games, with their archaic button controls, on the Wii. Maybe it's just us.The other game is one of the many entries in Falcom's Dragon Slayer series, Legend of Xanadu. It's a "ram into enemies" action-RPG like Ys -- and a side-scrolling RPG like Ys III. Smash Ping Pong (Famicom Disk System, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points) Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu (PC Engine CD-ROM, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) WiiWare in Japan, like in the US, has a sudoku game, though it is a different one. @Simple Series Vol. 2 THE Number Place Neo is part of the super-budget WiiWare version of D3's famous Simple series. Milestone, developers of shooters like Karous and Chaos Field, contribute a poker-based falling-block puzzle game. But the most exciting release is no doubt Kurohige Kiki Ippatsu Wii, Takara Tomy's adaptation of the Pop-up Pirate toy that Chris raved about. @Simple Series Vol. 2 THE Number Place Neo (1 player, 500 Wii Points) Kurohige Kiki Ippatsu Wii (1-4 players, 500 Wii Points) Pokers Wii (1-2 players, 500 Wii Points) %Gallery-37658%
