Schmidt’s famous remark merely restated Weiser’s 1991 ubiquitous-computing vision

Evidence

Schmidt was, in fact, merely paraphrasing computer scientist Mark Weiser’s seminal 1991 article, “The Computer for the 21st Century,” which has framed Silicon Valley’s technology objectives for nearly three decades. Weiser introduced what he called “ubiquitous computing” with two legendary sentences: “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” He described a new way of thinking “that allows the computers themselves to vanish into the background.… Machines that fit the human environment instead of forcing humans to enter theirs will make using a computer as refreshing as taking a walk in the woods.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 618

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘ubiquitous computing’ — Weiser’s foundational concept that computing should disappear into the environment — and credits it as the frame for three decades of Silicon Valley objectives.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s surveillance-capitalism framing: ubiquitous computing is the technical precondition for the behavioral surplus extraction Zuboff describes. — connects to: Weiser’s ubiquitous computing framed virtual reality as a mere map, not the territory — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 619
• SHARE: Narrow, perfect detail for someone into tech-history genealogy — that Schmidt’s crowd-shocking pronouncement was a straight borrowing from Weiser 1991.

Broader Connections

• Weiser’s ubiquitous computing framed virtual reality as a mere map, not the territory #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 619