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In 1999, I got to work on a literally once-in-a-lifetime project. As the 20th century was wrapping up, the magazine where I worked declared the personal computer the most important invention of the last 100 years. It wasnt exactly a contrarian pick: The magazine in question was PC World. To celebrate, we put together an article looking back at 100 defining moments in computing history. I was assigned to write blurbs on several of them. One was among the most obvious landmarks, Apples 1984 introduction of the Macintosh, which brought the graphical interface and mouse to the masses. I had a scant 250 words to recount an oft-told tale. Not wanting to merely rehash its familiar elements, I decided to focus on the Macs roots and emailed the guy who came up with the project in the first place, Jef Raskin. This dusty memory resurfaced in my brain this week when I read my colleague Jesus Diazs article about Apples upcoming iPadOS 26 operating system, one of the major announcements at this weeks WWDC conference. By giving the iPad a new interface with floating, overlapping windows, the software upgrade pushes the tablet far closer to the Mac. Jesus argues that the shift not only overcomplicates the iPad but also violates Raskins decades-old principles about how to make computing easy and intuitive. It might sound strange to say that the iPad is getting both more Maclike and more removed from the original vision of the guy who initiated the Mac project. But both facts can coexist. Apples 31st employee, Raskin started at the company as its publications manager. In 1979, he got the go-ahead to work on an easy-to-use computer he namedwith a slight spelling modificationafter his favorite kind of apple, the McIntosh. He put together a team oozing with talent, including people who would become some of the most legendary Apple staffers of all time, such as Bill Atkinson (who died last week), Burrell Smith, Bud Tribble, and Joanna Hoffman. Unfortunately for Raskin, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs not only took an interest in the Mac project but took it over. Under Jobs, the computer evolved into something only tangentially related to Raskins concept. After leaving Apple, Raskin oversaw the development of a short-lived machine that stuck closer to his vision, the Canon Cat. In later years, he continued exploring ways to make computing more approachable as a software designer, author, and teacher. He died in 2005. I no longer have the email I sent Raskin when working on that PC World article. But I managed to preserve the reply that landed in my inbox on August 16, 1999. Rereading it for the first time in years, I saw that it mentions me having asked about the degree to which the Mac was modeled on ideas developed at Xeroxs PARC lab, a font of inspiration for the entire computer industry. I also seem to have requested his take on the state of interface design a decade and an half after the Macs debut. Heres what he had to sayverbatim, except for the name of a publication he misremembered and some relevant Internet Archive links Ive added. Harry, For background, if you have not read my article “Holes in the Histories” (published in Interactions, also at www.jefraskin.com), you might want to take a look at it. My c.v., in case you need dates or references, is also at that site. The most accurate account of the Mac’s history that I have seen in print is in Linzmayer’s book Apple Confidential. So much for background. I do not think that the famous visit to PARC had much influence at all on the design of the Mac’s (and therefore Windows’) interface. What it did do was get rid of Jobs’ antipathy to interface-oriented design and allowed us to proceed without his earlier opposition to the Mac project. On the other hand, the migration of designers and engineers from PARC made the Mac interface more PARClike (and, in my opinion, harder to use, but spiffier and probably more marketable). Whether we would have had fewer such people if Jobs had not made his visit is not clear, because a number of us had been recruiting from PARC even before Jobs was on board with the Mac. You ask where we are, with respect to interfaces, in 1999: To put it briefly, in a mess. Our “personal” computers, whether PC or Mac, are more complex, larger in every way (except external physical dimensions), and more powerful than the mainframes and minicomputers we were rebelling against when the microcomputer revolution started. While today’s interfaces are far more pleasant and interactive, at least on the surface, than what they replaced, they are in fact convoluted, complex, opaque, and remarkably prone to crashing at the least provocation, or just out of natural inanimate perversity. The present GUI paradigm is inefficient, and has not scaled to today’s needs. It also violates much of what we know about how people can most effectively use computers. A complete rethinking is in order (some aspects of my rethinking of interface design has appeared in a number of articles, and a more complete account is the subject of my forthcoming book, The Humane Interface, to be published early next year by Addison Wesley.) To answer your question: Are we anywhere near where we should be? No. And it will take a company with guts and financial strength to stand behind the radical improvement we need. On the other hand, they stand to make billions if they do it right, and consumers will be standing up and cheering to be out from under the yoke of today’s (mainly, Microsoft’s) antihuman interfaces. At the time, I was probably most interested in Raskins stance that the Mac drew less inspiration from Jobs having seen PARCs work than conventional wisdom would have it. Now, 26 years later, what sticks out for me is his astringent view of where computing had gotten by 1999. Maybe it was pleasant and interactive, but it was also convoluted, complex, opaque, and remarkably prone to crashing at the least provocation, or just out of natural inanimate perversity. Thanks to Microsofts Windows XP and Apples OS X, computers got less crash-prone in the new century. Nothing else about them changed all that much in Raskins lifetime, though. As they bulked up with more features, they may even have ventured further astray of his ideal of streamlined, appliance-like efficiency. But in the 20 years since Raskin left us, new productshave never stopped fundamentally changing how people interact with technology. Reducing the cognitive load involved has nearly always been an overarching goal. Lets recap. The iPhone and iPad were conceived entirely for touch input. Googles Chromebooks turned the web browser into a full-blown computing environment. Amazon gave us Alexa, an assistant you could summon by talking to a speaker on the other side of the room. OpenAI turned its LLM into ChatGPT, a bot thats eerily adept at understanding typed requests and responding in fluid language. Yet what Raskin told me still resonates. The present GUI paradigm is inefficient, and has not scaled to today’s needs, he wrote. With iPadOS 26, Apple is applying that same paradigmresizable windows and menus, manipulated by a pointerto the iPad. In 1999, the company had just the Mac to worry about; at this years WWDC, it rolled out interface updates for computers, phones, tablets, watches, TV boxes, and headsets. Even if youre impressed by themI loved the demo I got of the Vision Pros VisionOS 26 and will write about it next weekthat sounds like the scaling problem Raskin saw in 1999, times six. And once a platform exists, it quickly grows resistant to the kind of complete rethinking he told me was in order. I dont mean to bash Apple alone. After giving Windows its most dramatic makeover ever with Windows 8 in 2012, Microsoft has spent the subsequent years trying to dial in an experience that somehow looks to the future while also pleasing people who might be satisfied with Windows XP if it remained an option. Chromebooks, which started out rejecting native apps as an idea before succumbing to the temptation to support Android ones, have wrestled with similar issues. Back in 1999, faced with cramming the prehistory of the Mac into a tiny write-up, I quoted Raskins point about Jobss PARC visit warming him to the potential of the embryonic Mac project, and didnt get into his harsh assessment of current interfaces. But even that didnt see print. Like most things that get published in dead-tree magazines, my Mac origin blurb was trimmed by an editor to fit the layout. I must have noticed that Raskins quote didnt make the final cut, and regret its excision today. At least Ive been able to belatedly share his entire email heresomething that wouldnt have even occurred to me was possible in the space-constrained days of computer magazines. In it, he posed a question about computer usability: Are we anywhere near where we should be? The answer, he said, was no. I dont presume to know how he might feel today. But the question remains a good starting point for judging new products. It always will be. And holding them to high standards, as Raskin did, is the best way to answer it. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company Thanks to AI, the one-person unicorn is closer than you thinkAnthropics Mike Krieger believes AI is dissolving the boundaries between idea and execution, making solo founders more powerful than ever. Read More Mark Zuckerbergs superintelligence gamble: Can billions and bold hires save Metas AI ambitions?Meta is betting big on a new superintelligence lab, luring talent with massive paychecks and bringing in Scale AIs Alexandr Wangbut insiders warn that deep internal dysfunction could sabotage the effort. Read More Hinge is teaming up with Esther Perel to rethink dating promptsA batch of 10 new Your World prompts aims to bring Hinge usersspecifically Gen Z onescloser together. Read More Is telecom the new tequila? Why the SmartLess podcast is launching its own wireless brandSmartLess Mobile is a less-than-obvious spin-off for Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes. Read More 3 great sites for recycling or giving away old techHelp save the planet by giving that pile of dusty electronics a new home. Read More
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In an age defined by self-driving cars, autonomous spacecraft, and artificial intelligence, it may come as no surprise that the science of effective water management often goes unnoticed. Many of usespecially in the U.S.have grown accustomed to the convenience of clean, reliable water, and often take it for granted. In fact, most Americans engage with the U.S. water system only via a series of fleeting touch pointswhen they turn a faucet, water their lawn, or start their dishwasherand have come to expect a seamless experience. And yet, behind the scenes, there is a complex, intricate network dedicated to providing safe and dependable water to hundreds of millions of Americans. But over the past several years, faced with unrelenting pressure, that system has started to crack. The truth is that water infrastructure across the U.S. is under immense strain. Decades of underinvestment, extreme weather events, and a huge increase in demand mean our nations water system is no longer fit for purpose. Wasted water One of the most significant areas of concern? Waste. The way we currently use, transport, and capture water is tremendously wasteful. In fact, the U.S. wastes more than 6 billion gallons of treated water a day due to pipe breaks and leaksenough to fill more than 9,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. Not only is that irresponsible, its also incredibly expensive: Water main breaks alone cost Americans $2.6 billion a year in repair and maintenance costs. Across the U.S., the rise of extreme weather events has exacerbated these issues. When there is too much water for one system to take, like during a hurricane, communities face excessive flooding, erosion, inefficient stormwater management, and unsafe water supply. When there is too littlefor example, during a heat wavetowns, cities, and entire states must navigate depleted aquifers, groundwater reservoirs, and, in the most severe cases, sustained droughts. Put simply, water managementour ability to effectively control and leverage water as a holistic resourcehas become an area of critical importance. The good news is that were not starting from scratch. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into law in 2021, allocated more than $50 billion to water infrastructure projects, including $20 billion for safe drinking water and $15 billion to replace lead pipes. But much more is needed. According to the 2025 American Society of Civil Engineers report: In 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that the nations water infrastructure needs stand at $625 billion over 20 years. That exceeds the EPAs 2018 assessment by more than $150 billion. The reality is that if we want to future-proof water infrastructure for the next generation, we need distinct, separate funding streams dedicated to improving water management programs, addressing the existing shortfall, and ensuring that no American suffers the consequences of poor water management, no matter where they live. Innovation is required Of course, solving such an immense challenge will require more than funding alone. We also need to embrace the transformational power of innovation. At its core, technology significantly improves our capacity to understand, react to, and solve complex water problems, making the entire water network more resilient, accessible, and easily managed. Fundamentally, it makes the invisible visible.” One of the reasons this is such a complex problem is because almost everything is underground. Thanks to technology, we are able to remove some of that obscurity, generating a degree of insight that previously we never thought was possible. Nowhere is that commitment more evident than in the work being done across the industry to integrate and scale artificial intelligence. By combining predictive and real time AI-driven analysis, innovative companies across the U.S. are developing the tools required to detect areas of elevated break risk and allow cities and counties to prioritize repairs to the most urgent areas of the network. Cutting-edge companies like Voda.ai, an AI software in which my company just invested that helps utilities create plans and do risk modeling, are a great example of that commitment in action, demonstrating just one of the many exciting projects were seeing across the sector. But AI isnt the only technology changing how water infrastructure is managed. Today, digitally powered smart drainage systems can adjust flow rates in response to real-time climate datahelping to mitigate flood riskand provide more control over when and where water is diverted. These systems can be integrated into major infrastructure projects, protecting critical buildings and reducing the potential damage to at-risk communities. Unfortunately, like with most technologies, there is no silver bullet that can address all the problems we face. Instead, what we have is a wide range of capabilities that, when used effectively, help drive down risk, mitigate major disruptions, and protect the most vulnerable parts of the network. The path ahead When you look at the challenges facing U.S. water infrastructure, its clear that significant hurdles remain. But there are also tremendous opportunities. The continued onshoring of critical services (including the production of computer chips fueling next-generation AI) should provide our country with additional motivation to address existing water infrastructure shortfalls so that we can ensure our communitiesas well as our manufacturing and services industrieshave access to safe and reliable water, wherever they need it most. The time has come for the U.S. to pay back its water infrastructure debt, and give one of our most precious and economically important resources the attention it deserves.
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Israel launched a wave of strikes across Iran on Friday that targeted its nuclear program and military sites, killing at least two top military officers and raising the prospect of an all-out war between the two bitter Middle East adversaries. It appeared to be the most significant attack Iran has faced since its 1980s war with Iraq. Iran quickly retaliated, sending a swarm of drones at Israel as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of severe punishment. The attack comes as tensions reached new heights over Tehrans rapidly advancing nuclear program. The Board of Governors at the International Atomic Energy Agency for the first time in 20 years on Thursday censured Iran over it not working with its inspectors. Iran immediately announced it would establish a third enrichment site in the country and swap out some centrifuges for more advanced ones. Israeli leaders cast the attack as necessary to head off an imminent threat that Iran would build nuclear bombs, though it remains unclear how close the country is to achieving that. Associated Press
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