Google Glass: Dyson designed smartglasses 10 years before Google

Google Glass: Dyson designed smartglasses 10 years before Google(theguardian.com)

5 points by maddisc2 12 years ago | 4 comments

maddisc2 12 years ago |

A comment by one of the readers on the guardian website:

"Thats nothing, Michael Knight had a self driving car years before Google."

jacquesm 12 years ago | |

This raises an interesting problem with respect to what really is 'inventing' things. For instance according to the public record Arthur C Clarke invented the telecommunications satellite. But if that's true then Da Vinci invented the submarine and the helicopter and Jules Verne spaceflight.

To me inventing something means you build a first working version, not just to say what could be done, but that's a definition that is not going to be helpful when an invention requires the cooperation of a large number of people to solve all the nitty gritty little details.

So, maybe whoever wrote the script for that series really did invent the self driving car...

The line between 'inventor' and 'visionary' is quite blurry, especially when the visionaries live in times when realization is still impossible due to limited technological knowledge.

georgemcbay 12 years ago | | |

Well even getting to the 'visionary' stage is an iterative process.

Long before KITT (from Knight Rider) there was Sally:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_(short_story)

And for all I know there could have been earlier examples, that's just the earliest one I'm aware of off the top of my head and perhaps somewhat coincidentally relevant since the oldest car character in the story was created in 2015 which is pretty impressive ball-park estimating (though the cars in the story are general purpose AI, which obviously is still a ways off).

Anyway, there's been lots of other self-driving cars in fiction like Herbie (The Love Bug), though they are generally more "magical" than technical, like KITT and Sally.