The Humanities Institute is pleased to sponsor Santa Cruz Film Festival‘s showing of General Magic. The multi-award winning documentary, is a tale of how a great vision, a grave betrayal and an epic failure changed the world. Spun out from Apple in 1990 to create the next big thing, General Magic shipped the first handheld wireless personal communicator in 1994. From the first smartphones to social media, e-commerce and even emoji, the ideas that now dominate the tech industry and our day-to-day lives were born at General Magic.

Combining rare archive footage with contemporary stories of the Magicians today, this documentary tracks the progress of anytime, anywhere communication from a thing of sci-fi fiction in 1994 to a reality in our pockets today. This is the story of one of history’s most talented teams and what happens when those who dream big fail, fail again, fail better and ultimately succeed.