Newton Poetry

Jeff Hohner posted pictures from this summer’s Worldwide Newton Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Above is event organizer Ryan Vetter introducing Larry Yaeger.

The Worldwide Newton Conference 2009 took place over a week ago in Vancouver, BC, and John Coady at the NewtonTalk list offers his observations from the weekend’s festivities:

Larry Yaeger gave us a fascinating glimpse into the development of the Newton and, of course, the work that he spearheaded on the second generation print recognizer – which was based on the use of artificial neural networks – that made Newton OS 2.x so incredibly better than the original (non-Apple) version. We were shown some of the original Newton prototypes and development/testing equipment (I hope that one day these end up in a suitable exhibit in Apple’s own museum). Larry then took us on a short stroll into Polyworld where he currently explores the further application of neural networks, and their various properties, in artificial life systems (to me it looks just like a straight extension of his work on the Newton!!!).

Sounds like a blast, despite the low turnout.

I couldn’t make it, unfortunately, but WWNC organizer Ryan Vetter has posted materials from the conference at the WWNC 2009 site.

[Ed. note: I had “Dennis Coady” when it should have been “John Coady.” Sorry about that, John!]

The on-again, off-again nature of this year’s Worldwide Newton Conference seems to be resolved, as event organizer Ryan Vetter pieces together details of the upcoming Newtonpalooza.

There were serious doubts as to whether the conference was going to happen. I had asked Vetter for details about the event several months in advance so I could prepare for a continent-wide road trip to Vancouver, British Columbia to attend. After not hearing anything back, I assumed the whole deal was kaput.

Finally, at the beginning of July, Vetter responded to the calls for details and sent out a message that WWNC was, in fact, still a go.

Since then, Vetter has gone on the Retro Maccast to give more details, and has updated the WWNC page with more specifics on available lodging locations in Vancouver.

As it stands, I will be unable to attend. The late notice and lack of specifics was enough to kill the trip for me. For one, I would have wanted to plan my road trip months ago. Two, the cost of a few night’s stay in downtown Vancouver is prohibitive.

I do wish everyone who attends a good and productive conference, and I’ll post updates as I see them. But sadly, because of all the WWNC start and stops, you’ll have to count me out.

Sadly, YouTube took the sound away from this Newton tribute video promoting WWNC 2009.

You can view a Quicktime version with sound on the WWNC page.

Did you notice Mr. Ballmer’s picture on there, at the end? It comes from my post about FSB a while back.

As if I wasn’t excited enough, this photo from the Big Picture helps me to look forward to the Worldwide Newton Developers Conference, taking place July 31-August 2 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

I plan on driving across Canada from Michigan to get there. It’s a trip I wanted to take in 2007, when I drove across the northern U.S. to Seattle (I planned to cross Canada on my way back, but flew instead). Now I have an excuse to see it all.

The Pacific Northwest is the most beautiful area I’ve been to yet, and images like the Big Picture’s make me look forward to seeing another part of this beautiful territory.

“The thing we knew about this computer was that it would be pen-based…”

Cool, first-hand account of the early days of Newton development from Walter Smith and James Joaquin. There’s a part 2, too, that you can find in YouTube’s sidebar.

Love the vanilla, hotel-conference-room decorations.