Irony

Today I was watching Anne Balsamo using the Prezi zooming presentation tool to give a great talk about the way history forgets who actually created various technologies. She was speaking specifically about how women have been written out of much of the history of technological innovation, and her talk referred to research reports with titles like “Notes for a revised history of technology.”

The whole scene was eerie for me, because I and my students had done the first foundational research on zooming interfaces. Our research at NYU led to a whole bunch of useful things elsewhere, including Prezi and Keyhole (which eventually became Google Maps).

Ironically, Anne herself was not aware that I had anything to do with the history of the technology she was using.

A few people in the room realized the irony, and gave me knowing looks. Sitting there, I was mostly thinking of it as a great opportunity for a blog post. 🙂

One thought on “Irony”

  1. Coincidentally enough, I mentioned you contribution / invention of these zooming interfaced in my talk earlier this evening.
    🙂

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