"The Domestication of Computers" will be the topic for Joel S. Birnbaum, senior technical adviser at Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), in the Henri Sack Memorial Lecture Wednesday, April 11, at 4 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium of Rockefeller Hall at Cornell University.

The lecture is free and open to the public and is hosted by Cornell's School of Applied and Engineering Physics. A reception will follow in 700 Clark Hall.

Comparing society's domestication of animals to our relationship with computers, Birnbaum observes: "As animals were tamed and selectively bred to perform specific tasks, they became critical to the progress of civilization. Today, information systems are becoming pervasive in our society. It is appropriate to ask whether computers and communications systems are evolving in a direction suitable to make them an indispensable part of everyday life for ordinary people."

Birnbaum earned his bachelor's degree in engineering physics from Cornell and his master's and doctoral degrees in nuclear physics from Yale University. He joined HP in 1980, after 15 years at IBM Corp.'s Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where his final position was director of computer sciences. His first assignment at HP was as the founding director of the Computer Research Center within HP Labs, where he led development of the precursor of HP Precision Architecture, the basis for all HP's RISC computers. Before retiring as director of HP Labs in 1999, Birnbaum served at the company's chief scientist and senior vice president for research and development. As senior technical adviser, his role is to help shape the company's technology strategy and to communicate this to the marketplace.