Steven Levy Losing The Magic

摘要

When arthur C. CLARKE went to the great geosynchronous orbit in the sky last year, he left behind a huge legacy, not least of which was a quote oft cited by Silicon Valley visionaries and wannabes. "Any sufficiently advanced technology," the sci-fi master wrote in 1962, "is indistinguishable from magic." "11 thought of Clarke's observation recently while I was playing with a Flip MinoHD camcorder. It's a stripped-down device with a footprint smaller than an Altoids tin, yet it holds an hour of video (in high definition!) and even has 2X zoom. It sports a clear 1.5-inch screen for shooting and playback. Its controls are so simple that even an adult can master them on the fly. It has a pop-out USB plug for uploading to a computer and recharging without fumbling for a cable. Its price tag is $230, less than the cost of a really good seat at a Van Morrison concert. 1 When I was growing up, television production was confined to studios, and video cameras were giant cyclopsian beasts that included chairs for their operators. Only TV stations and networks could capture a video image, and "getting on television" was an event that required alerting all your friends and the entire family tree. When the age of consumer video arrived, it was like a miracle-even though.