Sound Bytes with Walt Mossberg

We are excited to share the first installment of our newest initiative, Sound Bytes, inspired by the incredible caliber of our Decoding the Past speakers. For this project, we ask each of our speakers the same two questions and record their responses in order to build an ongoing video archive of our speakers’ expertise, reflections, and insight.

What was your first experience with personal computing?

Veteran technology columnist Walt Mossberg described what would now be called a “text chat” with a friend as his most memorable early experience with personal computers. Listen to Walt’s response to our first question, here:

If you could add one object to our collection, what would it be and why?

Walt suggested that the first camera phone photo ever taken would be a crucial addition to our collection.

On June 11, 1997, with the internet still in its infancy, PC pioneer Phillippe Kahn created the first “camera phone” in a Santa Cruz hospital, waiting for his daughter to be born. Driven by his desire to document this momentous occasion and a need to pass the time, Kahn wired his Motorola Startac flip phone to his Casio QV-10 digital camera, which he then connected to his laptop using speakerphone wiring ripped from his car. When baby Sophie was born, Kahn held his daughter in one hand and took her photo with the other, then instantly sent the image to over 2,000 people.

The impact of this invention cannot be understated. The ability to capture and instantly share imagery has changed the way we interact with the world and with one another. Anyone with a camera phone may now be a journalist, publisher, consumer, artist, or documentarian. The impact of image-based social media applications is debated in the highest courts, while their user numbers continue to grow. Instagram alone claimed 1.3 billion users in 2020.

Phillippe Kahn himself has continued to be hugely influential in the tech world. He founded several software companies including LightSurf whose picture-messaging technology is used today by Sprint, Verizon, and other major carriers. Kahn has been granted hundreds of patents for innovations related to artificial intelligence, wearable technologies, telecommunications, and motion-detection.