Bell Labs is wonderful to read about, and I've really loved delving into it. Alan Kay's talks in particular.

However, it should be seen as a starting point! Alternative hypothetical pasts and futures abound. One issue is that the stuff from the past always looks more legendary seen through the lens of nostalgia; it's much harder to look at the stuff around you and to go through the effort of really imagining the thing existing.

So that's my hypothesis - there isn't a smaller volume of interesting stuff going on, but viewing it with hope and curiosity might be a tad harder now, when everyone is so "worldy" (i.e., jaded and pessimistic).

Proof:

https://worrydream.com/ (brett victor)

and the other people doing dynamicland and realtalk, both discussed straightforwardly here:

https://dynamicland.org/2024/FAQ/

https://solidproject.org/about -- solid, tim berners-lee and co, also.

https://malleable.systems/catalog/ -- a great many of the projects here are in the same spirit, to me, as well!

https://spritely.institute/ -- spritely, too

https://duskos.org/ -- duskOS, from Virgil Dupras

https://100r.co/site/uxn.html -- 100 rabbits, uxn, vibrating with new ideas and aesthetics

https://qutech.nl/ -- quantum research institute in the netherlands, they recently established a network link for the first time I believe

etc etc. These are off the top of my head, and I'm fairly new to the whole space!

The Influence of Bell Labs