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TECHNOLOGY A23
Friday 12 February 2016

Apple co-founder is bringing us an even nerdier ‘Comic Con’

MICHAEL LIEDTKE Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is interviewed in San Francisco, Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016. Wozniak is helping to create the inau-
AP Technology Writer gural Silicon Valley Comic Con, which will be held from March 18-20, 2016, in San Jose, Calif.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) —
Apple co-founder Steve Associated Press
Wozniak had a front row
seat as the personal com- appearances on TV shows about $26 million, accord- like the Apple computer.” years, just with their cash
puter began to reshape such as “Dancing With The ing to Wozniak. Although Apple hasn’t (totaling $216 billion),” he
society. So it made per- Stars” and “The Big Bang He said that won’t hap- introduced another hit said. “That buys a lot of
fect sense to him to bring a Theory.” He now works at pen at Silicon Valley Comic product since Jobs’ death, failure. One of the things
convention meshing tech- a Silicon Valley startup, Con, which has already Wozniak doesn’t believe about innovation is you
nology with pop culture to Primary Data, and also sold enough tickets to the company has lost the have to risk failure.”
Silicon Valley. spends about a third of the turn a profit. Some tickets, “innovation magic” that Wozniak is hoping Silicon
The convergence will oc- year on the road, mostly which cost from $25 to $99, hatched the iPod, iPhone Valley Comic Con inspires
cur March 18-20 in San Jose, giving speeches and mak- are still available, though and iPad during the final some of the engineers and
California, with the debut ing other public appear- a sold-out crowd of about decade of its late CEO’s other entrepreneurs in at-
of Silicon Valley Comic ances. 30,000 people is expected. tenure. tendance to gamble on
Con. It’s a new twist on an “Everyone I go in the world, “Ever since starting Apple, “Apple is in great shape to ideas that may seem a little
idea that has brought to- people just say, ‘Thank you, I have had the mental- innovate for the next 200 kooky.q
gether fans of science fic- thank you,’ even if they ity that you should make a
tion, fantasy and superhe- don’t happen to own an profit,” Wozniak said. “That Magazine publisher Time Inc.
roes at packed shows held Apple product,” Wozniak was Steve Jobs’ big role (at buys what’s left of MySpace
around the world for years. said. “They are just saying Apple). He believed you TALI ARBEL
“I don’t like doing the same thank you for being a part start a company to make
thing as everyone else,” of it all and want to show a profit because that is the AP Technology Writer pany to Justin Timberlake
Wozniak told The Associ- their love.” only way you are going to NEW YORK (AP) — MySpace and other investors in 2011
ated Press Wednesday. So Silicon Valley Comic Con go on to build other great still exists? for $35 million. Today, it is
he teamed with four other is the first major event that things.” It does, and the company an entertainment-focused
partners to try something Wozniak has backed since Jobs frowned upon Woz- that owns the once-ubiqui- site that plays music videos
slightly different. the early 1980s. While on niak’s involvement in the tous social network is being and songs.
Throwing technology into leave from Apple follow- US Festivals and probably bought by Time Inc. to help Time Inc. will not say what it
the mix should ratchet up ing an airplane crash, he wouldn’t have thought the magazine publisher tar- paid. The publisher of Peo-
the nerd vibe that ripples financed the US Festivals, a much of Silicon Valley get ads. Parent company, ple, Sports Illustrated and
through all Comic Cons. pair of three-day concerts Comic Con, according to Viant, says it can give mar- Time was spun off from en-
A sold-out crowd of about held in the southern Cali- Wozniak. keters access to more than tertainment company Time
30,000 engineers, entre- fornia desert. The events, “He would have been at 1.2 billion users. MySpace Warner in 2014. The com-
preneurs and pop-culture which featured top acts it in his very early days, but peaked in 2008 with some pany is facing a decline in
connoisseurs is expected such as The Police, The Talk- people change and per- 76 million U.S. visitors before print ad dollars and it post-
to swarm into the Silicon ing Heads, The Clash, Da- sonalities settle in,” Wozniak losing ground to Facebook. ed an $881 million loss last
Valley event. vid Bowie and Fleetwood said. “He became more of News Corp. sold the com- year.q
The agenda includes a Mac, drew massive crowds the businessman taking the
panel devoted to the yet still managed to lose world forward with things
quantum realm and an
“app alley” featuring prod-
ucts fromtechnology start-
ups. The marquee attrac-
tions on the entertainment
side include William Shat-
ner from the original “Star
Trek” and “Back To The Fu-
ture” stars Michael J. Fox,
Christopher Lloyd and Lea
Thompson.
Wozniak, 65, is confident
the hybrid convention will
be a hit.
“The emotions we have
for technology now are
the same as we get for
movies, celebrities and the
whole pop culture side of
our lives,” he said.
That veneration of technol-
ogy helped turn Wozniak’s
late partner, Steve Jobs,
into an icon — and his Oc-
tober 2011 death into a
worldwide wake.
Wozniak himself has be-
come better known
through recent movies that
retold the story of Jobs and
Apple, as well as his guest