I think it's great news that Mike Lazaridis is giving another 50 million dollars to Waterloo's Perimeter Institute. This comes on the heels of the announcement of the new director, Neil Turock, a close friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking, meaning that the PI may be able to lure the grand old man of theoretical physics to my neighbourhood for a few months of the year. I'll save a spot on my porch.
I'm not qualified to comment on the success of the physics that gets done at the PI, but I never cease to marvel over their incredibly successful public outreach program. The lectures, held once a month, are free but require an online ticket "purchase". If you miss out on sending your request on the day that sales open, you can almost always expect to be placed on a waiting list. There is a new hotel in the works for Waterloo, and one of the arguments for it is that we need a place for out of town visitors to stay after the talks. These are for -- did I mention? -- theoretical physics talks. I usually attend these talks with a group of men from the neighbourhood. We have a club that parallels our wives' book club with only two rules: we don't talk about books (though we do all read....harumph!) and we do drink beer. Ah, a night out with the boys talking about quantum computing and cosmology over a pint or two at the local.
Linked to the article about about the PI is an interview with Lazaridis describing the history of RIM and his thoughts about the future of the smartphone. I remember, when I first came to the University of Waterloo, seeing posters plastered all over my building advertising a cocky startup venture called "Research in Motion" that was all about mobile computing. For some reason, it conjured an image of someone wired up with a backpack laptop, cybernetic camera glasses, and wires poking out of the top of his head. "It'll never catch on," I thought, in a lapse of judgment every bit as big as that of acquaintances of mine who were asked to make an initial investment with an upstart couple of guys who had an idea for a game called "Trivial Pursuit."
Most interesting about the article is the way Lazaridis describes his early vision of the Blackberry as a device that would free us from the office and so allow us to spend more time with our families. I'm not sure everyone feels that's what has happened. I don't use a Blackberry, but I do carry something quite similar around on my hip and I do sneak peeks at my email during playtime. When I first bought it, the argument I made to my wife was that this was preferable to my stealing down the stairs to the basement computer whenever I needed to make contact with the outside world, but it isn't clear to me that this is what has happened. I think I just spend more time online. My awareness is more often distributed across my contact list rather than being focused on the place where I am. How do we cope with technology that keeps us from ever settling completely into one geographic location? More to the point, perhaps, why do we like it so much? What mental switch turns a Blackberry into a Crackberry?