Reading Signals from the Future: EDUCAUSE in 2038

By reading and paying attention to present-day signals from our future, we can best make sense of the higher education IT world in 2038. In 1992, I was in a meeting at Apple Computer and was asked if I wanted to see the next "killer technology" the company would soon release. My Apple colleague left the conference room and came back to unveil the Apple Newton, a handheld device (sort of) that Apple was calling a "Personal Digital Assistant" (PDA) and that featured handwriting recognition. I flipped back the gray metal lid and tried the stylus, writing to my wife, "Dear Pat." My writing, converted to text on the fly, came back as "Deal Pot."