The Touchy-Feely Future Of Technology
In 1975, when then-composer and performer Bill Buxton started designing his own digital musical instruments, he had no way of knowing he was helping to spark the next technological revolution. But nine years — and a master's in computer science — later, that all changed.
"I wasn't trying to make a computer interface, I was just trying to make a drum," Buxton tells NPR's Robert Siegel. "Did I envision what was going to happen today, that it would be in everybody's pocket — in their smartphone? Absolutely not. Did we realize that things were going to be different, that you could do things that we never imagined? ... Absolutely."
Today, Buxton is known as a pioneer in human-computer interaction, a field of computer science that has seen a spike in consumer demand thanks to a new, seemingly ubiquitous technology