Dean Kamen Quotes

We've been working now with computers and education for 30 years, computers in developing countries for 20 years, and trying to make low-cost machines for 10 years. This is not a sudden turn down the road.

I grew up before computers. Computers are changing things, not all for the good.

Computers get better faster than anything else ever.

I'm a physicist, and we have something called Moore's Law, which says computer power doubles every 18 months. So every Christmas, we more or less assume that our toys and appliances are more or less twice as powerful as the previous Christmas.

Back in my day, I would probe by hand. Now you can get commercial software that does the job for you.

Languages evolve; ideas blend together. In computer technology, we all stand on others' shoulders.

Our successes have been so great and so rapid that, within 20 years, we've gotten a third of the world's population online, shrunk our computers to the size of our hands, and connected each to each.

I doubt that pornography has been good for the advancement of society, but I suspect it’s done wonders for the advancement of computer technology.

In the early stages of Internet in Japan, many said that Japanese and Americans are different. There are 10 reasons why Japanese Internet is not taking off. I said none of them are right; it's just a time lag. And, of course, Japanese Internet took off.

A big part of the success of Microsoft was that every year, the chips our software ran on got faster and cheaper. They doubled in capability every 18 months under Moore's law.

I don't think people change; electronics change, the things we have change, but the way we live doesn't change.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

I started working at a point in history when digital computers were becoming mature, and before that, there were no such machines.

If it weren't for Moore's law changing the playing field continuously, I would have been long gone. The rapid pace of hardware evolution still keeps things fresh for me.

I'm surprised that VR has come about so quickly. It's lucky I just happened to write a book imagining virtual reality right on the cusp of it actually happening.

Most of my work may happen at a computer, but it's still a new and very exciting frontier.

It turns out that the greatly underestimated downside of technological progress is a fractured world.

I guess I lean toward being an optimist, as far as improving tech being good for people, but that's not to say there are not potential downsides, and you have to stay aware of those downsides.

Ultimately, what the tech industry really cares about is ushering in the future, but it conflates technological progress with societal progress.

I am offended by people who feel that they're entitled to something just because of their last name.

I wasn't an avid watcher of the original 'Star Trek.' But they'd pull out this thing to communicate without wires and you thought, 'Yeah, right.' Now... we're doing that with cellphones. So I think our minds are more open to the unimaginable.

I didn't even have a computer until I was twenty years old.

Technology is moving quickly. Policy is not moving as quickly.

Once computers can program, they basically take over technological progress because already, today, the majority of technological progress is run by software, by programming.

Weird how fast technology changes.