Talk:Philippe Kahn

Camera Phone on NPR
This weekend there was an interview with Kahn on NPR where he discuss the camera phone.. Very interesting.. Of course one finds many versions of history on the web. Everyone wants to claim they were the father of one of the most successful consumer devices. Having researched this thoroughly myself, the evidence overwhelmingly points to Kahn. http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/programs/2007/01/06/father_of_the_camera.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.208.164.241 (talk • contribs) 11:10, 7 January 2007


 * What weekend would that be? HuskyMoon (talk) 12:07, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The article says "jerry-rigged", which is wrong. "jury-rigged" is correct. I can't find the NPR article, so I don't know if it said "jerry-rigged" ... in which case "[sic]" is appropriate, If not, replace it with "jury rigged" ... or (per the sjm article http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/08/a-baby-girl-and-the-camera-phone-were-born-20-years-ago/) Rube Goldeberg Alanf777 (talk) 23:07, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It isn't a quote, there is no need for a "sic". it is just content and i fixed it. Jytdog (talk) 23:08, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * OK!

The first Camera Phone? Look for the pictures...
>> I have followed up with the claims of so many. You'd think that if you created the first camera-phone that shared pictures with others, someone would have a picture. The only record of any such picture is the June 11th 1997 picture of Kahn's daughter Sophie. Tamburi and all others have none. For others than Kahn its like claiming to have created the camera and have no picture.>> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.210.180.103 (talk) 11:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The first Camera Phone?

-> 1197 conference in San Francisco: The only pictures are the 06/11/97 picture of Sophie Lee Kahn. Compelling: If any team had created the "Camera-Phone" before, you bet that they would have pictures taken and shared, received by others. HuskyMoon (talk) 09:27, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

A different version of events is here:

http://www.mobilityguru.com/2005/11/18/desperately_seeking_saburi/

I tried to follow-up those claims and found no pictures as Anon mentioned. That is strange to say the least. If I was Mr. Saburi I would have kept pictures. None to be found. Kahn's kid picture was received by several thousand people on the day of that birth. It's pretty compelling.Like evidence in a detective case. HuskyMoon (talk) 12:11, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

"Internet sources, including Wikipedia, typically suggest that it was Sharp's J-SH04 that won the race for the first camera phone. Even if Sharp claims on its website that this was the first mobile phone with an "attached camera," it debuted months after the real first camera phone"

"In the end, it turned out that the first camera phone was the Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210, which was released in May of 1999 in Japan. Besides the fact that it was known to be the first video-capable cell phone, it also was the first functional camera phone for digital still photos. The device weighed in at a hefty 6 ounces, integrated a 2.0" TFT display capable of displaying 65K colors, could transmit video at two frames per second and had enough memory to store 20 still images. Back then, the VP-210 sold for 40,000 Yen or about $335."

Chris Burrows 06:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

75.208.162.173 12:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)This seems to be incorrect as to the first commercial version. Let's also remember that camera-phones were described by Dick Tracy Comic Books and many science fiction writers. J-phone launched the first complete system in Japan that included Sha-Mai, which means "picture-mail" with the Sharp phone. There is reference of this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-Phone J-phone and Kahn's company had a business relationship. Kahn spent time in Japan in 1997/98/99 evangelizing the design. J-phone saw the wisdom of the end-to-end solution. In the US Sprint launched a LightSurf-powered called PictureMail, a trademark licensed from LightSurf. In japanese Sha-Mail means Picture-Mail. There was a fairly close relationship there.

The Kyocera model was a classic video-phone for which there had been many before designed. Wireless or wireline. A pure peer to peer device as opposed to a device designed to instantly share media with the rest of the world. The quote from Saburi 'What if we were able to enjoy talking with the intended person watching his/her face on the display?' We were certain that such a device would make cell phone communications much more convenient and enjoyable." is very clear. The camera-phone is a complete end to end system with the handset that includes a camera and the server infrastructure for instantly sharing. That was what Sha-Mil did on the Kahn blueprint and the reason for its huge success. Including the now famous Saddam camera-phone clip taken secretly with a Nokia camera-phone and shared on the moment with the world.

Checking Neutrality
Is this page purely about the self promotion of Philippe Kahn? Quite a few of the claims made on the main page have a reference - but that reference is just something like "Kahn", or "Kahn, interview" or his own web site. I don't see many external or third party references backing up any of his claims -- SteveCrook 02:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I am a fan of Philippe Kahn's work, especially the time he spent at Borland, but this article does not seem very objective -- Wikiwilf 23:16, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a horrible article. Mr Kahn's publicist working overtime here. Puh-lease, it makes me dislike the guy intensely and I've never even met him. This stuff lives on his personal Blog or Corporate BIO page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.43.59 (talk) 06:23, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. In fact a lot of people have contributed to this. It would be good for people contributing comments etc... to sign their names. It seems that there is a tendency for people with opinions to want to put them forward. I find the part about Borland to be confusing and it should be re-written. The rest seems pretty factual except the music part maybe that is subjective. If you look at the Bill Gates or Steve Jobs pages they seem totally written by publicists. But this one is plainly too poorly organized. Liking or disliking people doesn't seem to have much to do with anything on Wikipedia. It shouldn't. HuskyMoon (talk) 06:11, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I have now checked the references in the article and they seem to all be real. So I would say that maybe the style needs to be re-worked but I couldn't find a claim that wasn't accurate and verified. It seems that the present is not as prominent as some of the past like Borland. The part in there concerning "Charmaine Taylor" has no back-up. Whoever edited that, where did this come from? Can you provide outside references? HuskyMoon (talk) 18:27, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

== This seems resolved, checked all the comments. Questionable "facts" and neutrality. >> Not quite. ==

>> Look at this. This is a reference in the article. It does settle the case I would think. I do know the person who wrote this article in Dr. Dobbs. Reliable and trustworthy. Had been a critic of Kahn in the past I believe.

http://www.drdobbs.com/blog/portal/archives/2008/11/turbo_pascals_u.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.208.197.163 (talk) 11:52, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

This article looks like an autopromotion of Mr. Kahn.

>>Checked facts and Kahn was CEO always of Borland for the first 12 year. The just of a CEO is to manage. That fits right on. Note that Kahn is a mathematician and technologist and it seems that Turbo Pascal is a small part of what he's achieved. The 1997 sharing worldwide with the first camera-phone and that picture are IMHO much more significative. BTW, sources seem to pointHeilsberg did the compiler in Turbo Pascal but not the IDE. In any case if you have an issue with Turbo Pascal you should edit that one. Great idea. >>

What is worse, the facts and overall message over here are highly disputable. It's not only the fact that this "article" looks like an extended CV, even in terms of time order. Please see the section regarding Borland and compare the facts with an actual Borland article.

>> Kahn left Borland according to all accounts in 1995. Starfish started in 1994. So this just pertains to the early years of Borland. I suspect that whatever is written of Borland was written by Kahn's successors. He obviously got fired and history was probably re-written. Like it always is in Silicon Valley. I find the Borland part wordy, probably written by that lady Charmaine Taylor. There are no strange claims. >>

The bio suggests that Mr. Kahn was "the founder" of Borland (while according to this article he was not) and that Borland - one of the greatest PC software companies of those times - was a complete garage start-up founded by an illegal alien with no money (again, not true). This article is pretty good in creating false beliefs - it doesn't contain too many straightforward lies but by careful manipulation with facts it creates an image of Mr. Kahn of some kind of IT SuperHero, marvel programmer etc. It completely omits such "details" like the statements that all the software development was made by unknown programmers in Europe!

I see a similar problem in an article Turbo Pascal (see developed by Borland under Philippe Kahn's leadership - again, not a lie, but a manipulation. While the statement "Borland was under leadership of Mr. Kahn" may be true, the statement "Turbo Pascal was developed under leadership of Mr. Kahn" - not really. TP was started by Anders Hejlsberg and then still developed in Europe while Mr. Kahn remained in U.S. and couldn't really lead the software development).

Summing up, this article creates an untrue legend of Mr. Kahn. Mr. Kahn seems to be a very successful seller, advertiser and a man committed to monetizing great IT inventions, however he is not a superhero described in this article.

>> Borland is a blip on Kahn's career. The guys is quite accomplished. Just take a look at the list of patents. I can see 5 new ones in the last 3 months or so. It looks like he is the lead inventor. Pretty technical stuff. He must be one of the most prolific invenors in Silicon Valley I would say. I'd say that the dude is a good role model in Silicon Valley. Much more so than his peers>>

For me, this is an obvious autopromotion which should be thoroughly cleaned up.

>> It sounds like you may have a personal issue here? It would be good to bring facts. But I don't really see any. If you have an email address or a phone number maybe we can discuss?>>

Best, aegis maelstrom δ 15:28, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I see I am not the first one to notice that the article in question comes across as a celebration of Kahn's supposedly promethian existence. The promoter responsible might want to acquire a thesaurus, because using "success(ful(ly))" seven times within only a few paragraphs appears forced. Hffman (talk) 15:05, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Who are YOU to question things you know nothing about?.
Having worked for Borland Intl. in the 90's, I have a little insight into the validity of the information about Phillipe. But first, I am a little disappointed in the quality of the comments from people who question the claims of this wiki entry. Just because something about someone you don't know seems better than you can imagine based on your own circle of friends, it does not justify casting doubt on the information. Find some REAL FACTS and then add them here.

Here are a few FACTS. I worked at Borland from July 1992 until May or June 1993, on version 5 of Quattro Pro for Windows. During this time, I learned a lot about our corporate leader, some personal and some public knowledge. I can tell you that the info about Phillipe's professional and musical careers to that point is true. Phillipe is an accomplished flautist and a marketing genius. When I arrived at Borland, the company was not doing so well, partly because of the consequences of their acquisition of Ashton Tate (dBase). Perhaps, more importantly, the company was going through some internal struggles, partly related to the issues between Phillipe himself and his estranged wife who, for better or for worse, was also a major stockholder in the company. Phillipe was away from the company, enjoying some private time when my employment began, but was called back to duty, in spite of the personal contention, to right the corporate sails. Phillipe came back and the morale, sales and stock prices went up. Phillipe was also known for treating his employees VERY well. Each quarter, the company threw a catered feast at the local [name of hotel withheld]. This quarterly meeting was a business tool to share the corporate ideals, culture and vision in order to keep everyone inspired and working towards thee same objectives. Phillipe also met with each development team personally and in small groups to discuss his vision of the Borland's future, how each team's efforts contributed to that vision and to field ANY issues that developers might have. I left Borland the next year because I was making way too much money as a consultant to accept a permanent position, even in a company as great as Borland. I was also fortunate enough to have been able to attend a concert at a local pub in Cupertino where Phillipe and one of the senior staff at Sun (whose name I have long forgotten) played at. My point in sharing this information is not to make Phillipe's publicist's job easier, but simply to say this: Men who earn the admiration of the people around them do not need to rely on publicists to make their persona seem greater than it is. I don't know a single person I worked with who did not hold an equally high opinion of Phillipe.

Now, for all of you who want to speculate about whether this information is too good to be true - go get some facts and come back and talk to me. The only question about this wiki entry that I have is this: If Phillipe was 47 in 1962, that would make him 95 years old today. What the heck is this guy eating (or drinking)? I want some of it whatever it is. Also, I can't speak to Phillipe's accomplishments since the 90's, but I have no reason to doubt them. —Preceding personal knowledge comment added by Rlabston (talk • contribs) 01:37, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup
Editing to Clean-Up: We can use help any time! — Preceding unsigned comment added by HuskyMoon (talk • contribs) 09:29, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * New comments should be posted at the bottom, so I moved this down. You also should read WP:TPO and understand "you should not edit or delete the comments of other editors without their permission." The proper way to cleanup is to archive.  Mojoworker (talk) 08:35, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Birthdate is 1952 (or 1962?)
Looks like Kahn's birth year has been wrong since the error was introduced with this edit by an IP editor over two and a half years ago. It appears people have tried to change it previously, but those changes have been reverted back to the incorrect version. See this New York Times 1991 article where it states he was 39 in 1991. Also see his bio in A to Z of computer scientists:. I added a ref to the infobox, so hopefully it will stay correct going forward. Mojoworker (talk) 10:25, 14 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I took out the birthdate because there are conflicting birthrates. This website seems current and informed. It says 1962. http://www.memo.com/ HuskyMoon (talk) 08:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, no. When other editor's changed it to 1952, you kept reverting back to 1962 at least 7 times in the past year:, , , , , , , with no explanation in the edit summary nor here on the talk page (and you also marked those changes as minor edits), that sort of behavior looks like vandalism, even if that wasn't your intention. Why do you think memo.com is a reliable source as defined by Wikipedia? You need to read WP:RS and WP:V. There's no indication of who published the material at memo.com &mdash; are you claiming it's on par with the New York Times and Wired magazine and should outweigh the numerous reliable sources that say 1952? Mojoworker (talk) 08:01, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Huskiemarn makes sense: memo.com is current, and because of conflicting information it may be best to take that out. There are many such places that indicate different. -GradGuy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.228.213.95 (talk) 05:08, 19 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Please. Numerous in-depth biographical articles in respectable books, newspapers, and magazines all say 1952, but because one tiny website of unknown provenance (for all we know, it could be run by an obsessed fan) says 1962 in one place, all bets are off, and we shouldn't say anything? Please see WP:UNDUE. Note also that several of these articles are reprinted in full on the Fullpower website, such as this 2005 interview in the NYT; surely if they had gotten his age wrong by 10 years, it would have been noticed and corrected. I'm restoring 1952 until someone produces comparably compelling evidence for 1962. Hqb (talk) 12:55, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

camera phone
I think there's way too much emphasis in the article on that camera phone thing (whether it was really the first one or not). Kahn is surely far more famous for Borland than anything else. The camera phone should be relegated to a sentence or two with a citation, lower down in the article, IMO. 64.160.39.72 (talk) 23:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. The Camera Phone is important and Borland matters only from what I can see to programmers over 50. The camera Phone matters to everyone. Jeopardy is proof enough. More importantly Time/Life put it as one of the most significant inventions. I'd argue to make Borland even shorter and put more emphasis on the camera Phone. That is what got me interested in this. Looking for the first pictures and there is one, the one of that Baby. A seminal picture not doubt. HuskyMoon (talk) 08:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Sailing?
I have sailed on a couple of boats Philippe owned, (both named Dolphin Dance) although he rarely personally sailed on them, and was active in the Santa Cruz sailing community. Most of his regular crew considered him to be a poor helmsman. He did have a very good boat manager who I sailed with extensively both on Dolphin Dance and boats owned by other people. Any success he had should probably be attributed to his crew, since he certainly had no talent at this sport other than the (very important) ability to spend large sums of money.

My bother was a technical peon at Borland in the early '80's (prior to their going public) and Kahn was not at all generous in rewards to people who had helped Borland get to that point. But, hey, that is another story. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmsully (talk • contribs) 01:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

On Sailing: Sign your comments. I don't know much about sailing, but his records across the Pacific are double handed. That means only two people on-board for weeks at a time, so it's pretty reasonable that he'd be a decent sailor. People have to sleep! His boats seem to be called Pegasus not Dolphin Dance. That's a Herbie Hanckock song. A good one mind you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HuskyMoon (talk • contribs) 09:33, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Borland Days
I saw Phillipe Kahn at the West Coast Computer Fair in San Fransisco around 1982 or 1983 (so long ago I can't excatly remember). He was one of the guest speakers at some round-table talk, and I distinctly remember when it was his turn to talk, someone asked him why Turbo Pascal was so cheap (about $30) compared to Microsoft's compilers (about $180). He really got worked up about it and said something along the l ines of "I can tell you that I am making a huge profit on each and every sale. Microsoft is just plain greedy". I still get a smile about it to this day, how he got so mad that he was making a good chunk of change and Microsoft was just astronomical and worse quality generated code. I haven't seen any Borland compilers around for quite a while, but Microsoft is still putting out over-priced compilers that generate very sloppy and loose code, which explains a lot about the 'bloating' of code in Microsoft products, since they use their own compilers. 136.177.33.218 (talk) 19:50, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Philippe Kahn
For the paragraph were it says what Phillippe's parents did, it says that his father was.... Should it say his father is or was? I couldn't find his father online so can somebody with better knowledge about this subject check this out Robert (talk) 02:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Academic Credentials
The page provides very little details about Philippe Kahn's academic achievements. He holds the French maitrise degree and AGREGATION de Mathematique certified by the French Academy of Sciences. His academic interest was in pure mathematics with emphasis on number theory. Also he taught university math in Nice and Grenoble. Spartakrz (talk) 16:53, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Development Achievements
Philippe Kahn is an experienced developer as well. He wrote Micral's Sysmic (kind of OS) and ASMIC(assembler). Back in ETH Zurich days under Niklaus Wirth's guidance he took part in building the very first Pascal compiler for big machines. Also it was Philippe Kahn who wrote MicroCalc spreadsheet example to be shipped with Turbo Pascal 1. Spartakrz (talk) 17:04, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

He was not at ETH when the first Pascal compilers were being developed, that happened in the late 60's and very early 70's before he went there, and all the early Pascal compilers were for "big machines".

On page 192 from "Betting It All" by Michael S. Malone, Philippe Kahn himself says that he took part in building the very first Pascal compiler for big machines while being at ETH Zurich

Illegal Alien
Mr Khan was an illegal alien for a number of years, he finally got a green card when it became an impediment to operating Borland

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/14/business/making-a-difference-from-bad-boy-to-big-business.html

A French-born math teacher turned programmer, the 39-year-old Mr. Kahn was an illegal alien when he founded Borland, an oversight that scuttled a planned merger with McGraw-Hill in 1985. He has since obtained a green card.

(As the NYT published this, I dare any "Editor" to declare that a biased source or NPOV or any other typical complaint)

--Patbahn (talk) 23:45, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Really the first camera phone?
According to the article the famous picture was taken through the jury rigging of a cell phone with a digital camera. I would hardly call that a camera phone as we would consider it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HBBorges (talk • contribs) 22:48, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

philippe kahn patents show DP Technologies Inc
The patents for philippe kahn mention DP Technologies Inc. What is the relation to fullpower? Family Guy Guy (talk) 20:28, 22 June 2022 (UTC)