GoKawiil
Tech News
Telephone World is now hosting Evan Doorbell's Phone Tapes, a collection documenting the workings of the 1970s-era telephone network. The site includes a curated Group 1 Playlist of 95 narrated recordings, along with additional narrated 'production tapes' and newly released unnarrated 'raw tapes'. Doorbell holds copyright but permits free redistribution, provided the material is not sold.
A commentary published on AI's trajectory contends that the technology's next major leap will not be a single standalone device but a layer that coordinates the many connected tools already in use. The author frames this as a shift from AI as a discrete product, in the mold of the telephone or smartphone, toward AI as an orchestrating layer across existing technology.
The piece traces how Western Electric, the manufacturing backbone that later became central to AT&T's Bell System, was founded in 1872 by Enos Barton and Elisha Gray—the same Gray who disputed Alexander Graham Bell's claim to inventing the telephone. Gray bought out co-founder George Shawk and became half-owner of the firm, partly intending to manufacture his own competing telephone design.