It started with a simple piece of electronics which enabled Acorn Computer’s BBC microcomputer to capture and manipulate video images; ten years later it was used to build Britain’s first online newspaper. Along the way, the company that developed this technology produced imaging systems to detect brain tumours, send pictures to point of sale video displays and create virtual hairstyles. Digithurst was formed during the early days of Cambridge’s microcomputer boom; before the city had become a phenomenon. It grew organically, developed the first video in windows PC technology for Reuters and, in Germany, became a major player in radiography. Its advanced AI driven browser technology has even been used to deliver advertisements to screens on lottery terminals.
However, Digithurst was an unconventional company. It exploited the fact that US companies were reluctant to sell their most advanced technology outside of America, and connections in Eastern Europe, to expand internationally. In the early 1990s it used computer technology and buildings to construct complicated mind games - helpfully funded by the EU. These experiments in transcendence and temporal distortion predicted the online experience of the Internet user two decades later. Newspaper publishers were given a glimpse of the future when Digithurst used ISDN connections to create a video chatroom within which news was collected, disseminated and commented on; newspaper editors were even given a demonstration of trolling.
Now Peter Kruger, founder and for 12 years CEO of Digithurst, has written a book describing the company’s early years. ‘The Ghost in The Labyrinth - On the threshold of the Internet Dream,’ is published by Steinkrug Publications.
As well as providing a unique insight into the decade which took us to the dawn of the Internet age, the book looks ahead to where imaging software is likely to take us next. According to Kruger, when the current hiatus in mobile technology development ends, devices will become powerful enough to analyse micro gestures - small changes in facial expressions we can only detect subliminally. This leap forward in communication, he claims, will be an order of magnitude more challenging than the Internet itself.
The book is available in paperback from 3rd May priced £7.99
Further details can be found on Steinkrug Publications website
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