An Accenture publication called "Centerpoint" just interviewed me, as a new member of the research labs.


Your favorite (computer) language:

. . . has not yet been invented. But it's going to be great.

Current PDA: My newest device has a black leather cover, a bookmark sewn into the binding, and eggshell-colored unlined paper. It's fast, too.

How do you explain your job to your family?

I tell them that I'm an inventor. My job is to make wiser gizmos, somehow.


What's the worst bug you've encountered (or--gulp--committed) and what havoc did it wreak?

All the really vexing bugs think that they're features. For example, the message "Abort, retry, fail". Or that paperclip thing in MS Office. These are things that alienate people from computing -- they destroy the relationship to a good tool.


Besides your cell phone, which gadget do you use the most?

Cellphone? Gadget? Who has the time? I like a meerschaum pipe, a German car, a good kitchen knife, or a ballpoint pen. The best technologies are the ones worn down and polished by long, intelligent use. I might get a cellphone in ten years.


Have you ever persuaded someone--friend, relative, the person next to you on a transcontinental flight who only wanted to sleep--to buy a particular gadget? Which, and how?

On planes, I try to get people to read Moby Dick.


What was the first electronic device you took apart to see how it worked? Did you get it back together again?

It was something with a little gearbox inside, full of white plastic gearlings. And no, those things never, ever go back together again. It's pure entropy.


Describe (as tastefully as possible) your fantasy convergence device.

I think that the things that make _people_ converge, in physical spaces, are the most important technologies. Getting people to converge in virtual spaces is fairly exciting, too. So I'd like a system -- a network, and a set of interfaces to it -- that would do both. Television, the web, and online gaming are not that system, though they suggest elements of it. IM may point a way forward.


How would you pitch your current project to someone in an elevator?

We're trying to put a book's worth of information all on one screen, sort of like a really smart piece of microfiche.


What piece of advice would you give to the young people of today?

I had a physics professor who met Einstein once, as a young student at Oxford. So I'll just relate what he said to me. "We met Einstein in a hallway. They asked us if we had any questions for Herr Doktor Einstein, and we didn't know what to say. So they asked Einstein if he had anything to say to the students. He said yes. He said, 'Never believe anything that you read in the newspapers.'"