Thursday, March 03, 2011

Tim Wu book and Terry Gilliam

As mentioned previously, I'm going to see Tim Wu discuss his new book The Masters Switch. I'm presently reading the book (and highly recommended). Whilst reading the book on one chapter it discusses the invention of the Hush -a-phone sold by Harry Tuttle. Harry was stopped by AT&T in the 1930's from selling this product (which kept phone calls private). AT&T monopoly meant that Harry Tuttle was stopped from selling this product, even though in court he had a young engineer called John Licklider pointing out that it worked and caused AT&T no problems (for those who don't know Licklider you should read this.
But in the book Harry is a guy fighting 'the man' (or AT&T), just like the character Harry Tuttle in Terry Gilliam's great film Brazil.

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