The real Ajay Bhatt, co-inventor of the USB port
engadget.com
engadget.com
http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
Interesting that a Tonight Show advertiser initiated this interview, the show said yes, and even admits this interview was prompted by a sponsor. (Also interesting that the ad-block HN crowd isn't complaining about watching sponsored content)
Intel's PR and marketing people played this one really well.
The "submarine" essay is a good one, but it has caused people here to overestimate the cleverness of PR people. It's better to think more in terms of the press being lazy.
I think it’s quite respectable for Tonight Show to both acknowledge that this is a sponsored interview and to make light of the fact.
As far as a positive portrayal of an engineer -- I think it kind of undercuts the message to have an actor take his place in the commercial.
The real inventors are not in the ads; they are played by actors. Mr. Bell said he wanted to ensure the commercials were humorous, and avoid arguments with Intel employees over which should be featured.
"When you are required politically to cast certain people and get everyone involved, you tend to get this watered-down, feel-good campaign that works really well internally and makes the company itself feel good," but does not appeal to consumers, he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/business/media/06adco.html
For TV advertisements, you need people who can act. Engineers aren't actors. Save the real engineers for informational pieces like this interview.
Only B list celebrities play themselves on TV.
Then what is he doing on Conan?
"A decade ago, he would have been reduced to caricature" and the same thing happened now, so who knows whether the real Ajay would've been cool with it or able to pull it off. Consider all the wooden ads by sports stars that come off as stiff and rely on the recognition factor only.
USB certainly was a huge step and made them a lot of money, much of which Ajay is responsible for. This makes him a rock star.
[1]- Firewire lost mainly because the cheaper+slower USB1.1 became ubiquitous first, and then came the backward-compatible (in connectors/cables) and comparably-fast USB2.0.
USB 1.0 seems like one of the many interfaces that will eventually end up obsolete just like ISA PCI AGP PCMIA etc...
I really don't see anything technically superior about USB (feel free to correct me). The main reason it won out over Firewire was of course Intel and Microsoft backing, and that it was in the sweet spot for the price/feature trade off.
So on the low-performance side, the advantage is clear. And end-users like the simplicity of having the same physical port for all their computer peripherals (which can use low- (<1Mbit), full (12MBit) or high (480MBit) speed, without the user knowing or noticing).
While I personally think that Firewire is the more elegant, better performing and more flexible communication technology, I can see why USB surpassed it in the marketplace.