CHM Blog
The CHM blog showcases ideas and insights from our vibrant community in Silicon Valley and around the world. We take you behind the scenes of our programming, collections, and exhibits. Connecting the past to the present and into the future, we decode technology for everyone.
Curatorial Insights
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Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
MediaView: The nearly forgotten NeXT program that helped save the Open Web
Thursday, September 12, 2013
If Steve Jobs hadn’t gotten kicked out of Apple in 1985, the Web might look very different today. But not for the reasons most people might think.Angry and deeply hurt, the arrogant, hard-to-control young entrepreneur sent a pointed message with the name of his next company: NeXT, Inc. The matte black cube computers he
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Curatorial Insights
The Dawn of Computer Comics: Shatter
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Almost from the moment it was introduced, Apple’s Macintosh computer system was adopted by graphic artists. Sales were brisk and, a little over a year after the Mac’s introduction, a pioneering comic book was created.
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Curatorial Insights
The Banana Junior 6000: Computers and Comedy
Thursday, August 15, 2013
The truest sign of anything becoming a part of everyday culture is when it has been picked up by the world of comedy.
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Curatorial Insights, From the Collection
Racetrack Betting Mechanized
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
On Tuesday, July 16, 2013, a group of almost seventy people attended a CHM SoundByte lunchtime lecture entitled The Totalisator – An Algorithm That Led to an Industry.
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Curatorial Insights
Women and the Public Face of Computing
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Curatorial Insight
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Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
Exhibiting the Online World
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Whether you’re a Maasai tribesman buying and selling cattle on your mobile phone, or a Norwegian bride to the altar with the groom you met online, it’s hard to think of an area of modern life that’s not being radically changed by the Web, the Internet, and mobile data. It is also hard to think of a field where even the
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Curatorial Insights
Warhol & The Computer
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
People don’t associate legendary Pop artist Andy Warhol with the computer. While most of Warhol’s creative output happened in the 1960s, when only a few serious artists had access to and used computers, he continued to paint and create artworks up until his death in 1987. Towards the end of his life, he began to create
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Curatorial Insights
IBM’s Watson “Jeopardy!” Computer Comes to CHM
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Curatorial Insight
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Curatorial Insights
Why Analog Computers?
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Every once in awhile, I like to go into the Museum’s permanent exhibition Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing. I particularly look for visitors in one of the galleries I curated, Analog Computers. Oftentimes, I find someone reading a label or looking at the objects with a mix of curiosity and bewilderment.
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Curatorial Insights, From the Collection
Buddhism and The Computer
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Many consider novelist Arthur C. Clarke’s 1953 story The Nine Billion Names for God to be one of the finest stories in the history of science fiction. Computers had started to penetrate popular culture and were being used in an impressive array of new applications. Nonetheless, many might have found it a stretch to wri