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Steve Jobs discusses 21st century technology in rare 1983 speech

Steve Jobs discusses 21st century technology in rare 1983 speech

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1983 Steve Jobs speech tape
1983 Steve Jobs speech tape

An additional 40 minutes of a speech that Steve Jobs gave at the International Design Conference in Aspen in 1983 has been released for the first time. The first 20 minutes of the recording were made available by the Center of Design Innovation in August, but answers to questions posed by the audience after Jobs’ initial speech were cut. After being handed a recording of the full session, Marcel Brown of Life, Liberty, and Technology made a digital copy, cleaning up background noise in the process before uploading the final copy for all to hear.

Jobs dives into several topics in the Q&A session, detailing how computers will become integral parts of everyday life while reshaping the way people communicate. The late Apple CEO also predicted that networking in the home would be solved in around 10 years, while also hinting at an Apple strategy to "put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you" that would feature a "radio link," a reference to what would later materialize as the iPad. Jobs goes on to explore other avenues of computing which can be heard in the full 54 minute recording available on Soundcloud.