Was the Media's Coverage of the IT Invention Overdone?

Posted on March 9, 2001

Brill's Content, a magazine which covers the media, has announced an interview with Dean Kamen, the inventor of the much speculate "IT" invention. The interview appears in the April issue of Brill's Content and online. The feature argues that the media has confused hype with reality in its coverage of Kamen's "IT" invention.

The Brill's Content story chronicles how the media actively reported on the story without speaking with Kamen or consulting the original document upon which the report was based: a book proposal about "IT." When Brill's Content interviewed Kamen a story emerged which is radically different from what people believe today based upon existing news reports.

According to a press release recently released from Inside magazine "people who have seen 'IT,' including Apple's Steve Jobs, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and venture capitalist John Doerr, have variously described it as being more important than the PC or the Internet and have said that it will transform cities and the way people live." Inside also recently provided a feature about the IT invention in its print edition.

Brill's Content stated that after interviewing Damen they learned that neither Jobs nor Bezos are investors in the company and both men are deeply critical of "IT's" design and release plans. Jobs said the design "sucks" and that "its shape is not innovative, it's not elegant, it doesn't feel anthropomorphic." Bezos said, "I think this plan is dead on arrival. The U.S.A. is too hostile." The interview was conducted by Mark Boal, a senior writer at Brill's Content.