Esther Dyson in San Francisco in 2005

Esther Dyson (born 14 July 1951 in Zürich, Switzerland) is a self-described authority on emerging digital technology, and considered a founding member of the digerati. Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 400 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (1152 × 1728 pixel, file size: 365 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Licensed under ShareAlike 2. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 400 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (1152 × 1728 pixel, file size: 365 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Licensed under ShareAlike 2. ... July 14 is the 195th day (196th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 170 days remaining. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... Zürich IPA (in English often Zurich, which is also the standard French form of the name) is the largest city in Switzerland (population: 364,558 in 2002; population of urban area: 1,091,732) and capital of the canton of Zürich. ... A digital system is one that uses numbers for input, processing, transmission, storage, or display, rather than a continuous spectrum of values (an analog system) or non-numeric symbols such as letters or icons. ... The digerati are the elite of the computer industry and online communities. ...

Dyson is the daughter of Freeman Dyson, a physicist, and Verana Huber-Dyson, a mathematician, and the sister of the digital technology historian George Dyson. After graduating from Harvard in economics, she joined Forbes as a fact-checker and quickly rose to reporter. In 1977, she joined New Court Securities as "the research department," following Federal Express and other start-ups. After a stint at Oppenheimer covering software companies, she moved to Rosen Research and in 1983 bought the company from her employer Ben Rosen, renaming it EDventure Holdings. She sold EDventure Holdings to CNET Networks in 2004, and left CNET in January 2007, closing her PC Forum conference. Freeman John Dyson (born December 15, 1923) is a British-born American physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum mechanics, solid-state physics, nuclear weapons design and policy, and for his serious theorizing in futurism and science fiction concepts, including the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. ... George Dyson at University of Washington, Seattle 2005 George Dyson (born 1953) is a scientific historian, the son of Freeman Dyson, brother of Esther Dyson, and the grandson of Sir George Dyson. ... Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ... The Federal Express was a passenger train operated on the Poughkeepsie Bridge Route. ... Oppenheimer may be the surname of: Alan Oppenheimer, a film actor David Oppenheimer, a mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, founder of a producers cooperative & single channel marketing, the forerunner of De Beers Frank Oppenheimer, a physicist Franz Oppenheimer, a German sociologist and political economist Harry Oppenheimer, a... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Dyson and her company EDventure specialize in analyzing the impact of emerging technologies and markets on economies and societies. She created the following publications on technology:

• Release 1.0, her monthly technology-industry newsletter, published by EDventure Holdings. Until 2006, Dyson wrote several issues herself and edits the others. When she left CNET, the newsletter was picked up by O'Reilly Media, which appointed Jimmy Guterman to edit it and and renamed the newsletter Release 2.0, which is also...
• Release 2.0, her 1997 book on how the Internet affected individuals' lives. Its full title is Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age. The revision Release 2.1 was published in 1998.
• Release 3.0, her bimonthly column for the New York Times, distributed via its syndicate and reprinted in Release 1.0.
• Release 4.0, her weblog. On March 4, 2005, this weblog moved to Dyson's Flickr account ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/edyson/ ).

Dyson is an active member of a number of non-profit and advisory organizations. From 1998 to 2000, she was the founding chairman of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. As of 2004, she sat on its "reform" committee, dedicated to defining a role for individuals in ICANN's decision-making and governance structures. She has followed closely the post-Soviet transition of Eastern Europe, and is a member of the Bulgarian President's IT Advisory Council, along with Vint Cerf, George Sadowsky, and Veni Markovski, among others. She has served as a trustee of, and helped fund, emerging organizations such as Glasses for Humanity, Bridges.org, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Eurasia Foundation. She is also a member of the board for The Long Now Foundation, and is a part-owner of the First Monday journal. She is now an occasional writer for Arianna Huffington's online Huffington Post. She has also been a board member or early investor in tech startups, among them Flickr, PowerSet.com, Medscape, and Medstory. Release 1. ... Programming Perl is a classic OReilly book. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... A weblog (now more commonly known as a blog) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally, but not always, in reverse chronological order). ... Flickr is a photo sharing website and web services suite, and an online community platform, which is generally considered an early example of a Web 2. ... A non-profit organization (often called non-profit org or simply non-profit or not-for-profit) can be seen as an organization that doesnt have a goal to make a profit. ... ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Vinton Gray Cerf (born June 23, 1943) is an American computer scientist who is commonly referred to as one of the founding fathers of the Internet for his key technical and managerial role, together with Bob Kahn, in the creation of the Internet and the TCP/IP protocols which it... George Sadowsky (born September 30, 1936 in Russia) is an American computer scientist who has worked in a number of entities, related to promotion of the Internet worldwide. ... Veni Markovski. ... The Eurasia Foundation is a publicly funded, privately managed grantmaker and program implementer working to strengthen civil society, advance private enterprise and promote public policy and administration in the successor states of the former Soviet Union--Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and... The Long Now Foundation was established in 1996. ... First Monday is a peer-reviewed journal for articles about the Internet. ... Arianna Huffington talks to the media while campaigning for governor of California at UC Berkeley on September 11, 2003. ... Flickr is a photo sharing website and web services suite, and an online community platform, which is generally considered an early example of a Web 2. ... Medscape is a free site containing peer-reviewed information written at the level of physicians and other health profesionals, but open to anyone who registers. ...

Impact on Computer Industry

Dyson from the early days admired Bill Gates. She is quoted in Wired as saying: "I might have been more mainstream if I were a guy; I might have wanted to be Bill Gates. "[1] Dyson's influence could be vastly detrimental to anyone in Gates' way in the 80s and early 90s. Gates returned the compliment many times by helping promote Dyson's endeavours. After Dyson said that "every software person wants to be Bill Gates", Larry Ellison is quoted as saying: "I really don't get Esther?". Some people say that Dyson played a crucial political "King Maker" role that was far from neutral. For example, in the copyright and patent litigation between Jim Manzi and Borland, Dyson sided for Manzi although the Lotus position was detrimental to innovation. Borland won that case in the Supreme Court, a landmark case for high-tech IPR (Intellectual Property Rights). Generally recognized as smart, Dyson tends to take positions with her close entourage. Her impact on the computer industry has been significant and many would say biased. In her first conferences, Dyson sided with Gates against Open Source. It took Dyson several years and the successful momentum of Open Source to have her support the new industry trend. For other persons named Bill Gates, see Bill Gates (disambiguation). ... For other persons named Bill Gates, see Bill Gates (disambiguation). ... Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is the co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation, a major database software company. ... The former Chairman, President and CEO of Lotus Development Corporation, Jim Manzi is widely regarded as a pioneer in workgroup computing. ... Borland Software Corporation is a software company headquartered in California. ... The supreme court in some countries, provinces, and states, functions as a court of last resort whose rulings cannot be challenged. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ...

External links

• Wired article
• Release 1.0 Website.
• Esther Dyson's writings on the Huffington Post
• Virginia Postrel, "On the Frontier." Interview with Esther Dyson in Reason
• New York Times Editorial on Goodmail.
• Biography of Dyson at edventure.com.
• The Long Now Foundation.
• Future events in which Esther Dyson is participating
• BT Big Thinkers Esther discusses business challenges with thought leaders