Authors: Joel Garreau.
Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: Broadway
Publication Date: 2006-05-09


Reviews :

    Taking us behind the scenes with today’s foremost researchers and pioneers, bestselling author Joel Garreau shows that we are at a turning point in history.  At this moment we are engineering the next stage of human evolution.  Through advances in genetic, robotic, information, and nanotechnologies, we are altering our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our personalities, our progeny–and perhaps our very souls.  Radical Evolution reveals that the powers of our comic-book superheroes already exist, or are in development in hospitals, labs, and research facilities around the country–from the revved-up reflexes and speed of Spider-Man and Superman, to the enhanced mental acuity and memory capabilities of an advanced species. Over the next fifteen years, Garreau makes clear in this New York Times Book Club premiere selection, these enhancements will become part of our everyday lives. Where will they lead us? To heaven–where technology’s promise to make us smarter, vanquish illness, and extend our lives is the answer to our prayers? Or, as some argue, to hell–where unrestrained technology brings about the ultimate destruction of our species?...

Authors: Ray Kurzweil.
Kindle Edition, 672 pages
Publisher: Viking
Publication Date: 2007-02-01


Reviews :

    The great inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil is one of the best-known and controversial advocates for the role of machines in the future of humanity. In his latest, thrilling foray into the future, he envisions an event-the "singularity"-in which technological change becomes so rapid and so profound that our bodies and brains will merge with our machines. The Singularity Is Near portrays what life will be like after this event-a human-machine civilization where our experiences shift from real reality to virtual reality and where our intelligence becomes nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence. In practical terms, this means that human aging and pollution will be reversed, world hunger will be solved, and our bodies and environment transformed by nanotechnology to overcome the limitations of biology, including death. We will be able to create virtually any physical product just from information, resulting in radical wealth creation. In addition to outlining these fantastic changes, Kurzweil also considers their social and philosophical ramifications. With its radical but optimistic view of the course of human development, The Singularity Is Near is certain to be one of the most widely discussed and provocative books of 2005....

Authors: Katie Hafner.
Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: 1998-01-21


Reviews :

    Considering that the history of the Internet is perhaps better documented internally than any other technological construct, it is remarkable how shadowy its origins have been to most people, including die-hard Net-denizens!

At last, Hafner and Lyon have written a well-researched story of the origins of the Internet substantiated by extensive interviews with its creators who delve into many interesting details such as the controversy surrounding the adoption of our now beloved "@" sign as the separator of usernames and machine addresses. Essential reading for anyone interested in the past -- and the future -- of the Net specifically, and telecommunications generally....

    Twenty five years ago, it didn't exist. Today, twenty million people worldwide are surfing the Net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone.

In the 1960's, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices. With Defense Department funds, he and a band of visionary computer whizzes began work on a nationwide, interlocking network of computers. Taking readers behind the scenes, Where Wizards Stay Up Late captures the hard work, genius, and happy accidents of their daring, stunningly successful venture.

...

    Twenty five years ago, it didn't exist. Today, twenty million people worldwide are surfing the Net. "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone. In the 1960's, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices. With Defense Department funds, he and a band of visionary computer whizzes began work on a nationwide, interlocking network of computers. Taking readers behind the scenes, "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" captures the hard work, genius, and happy accidents of their daring, stunningly successful venture. ...

Authors: Charles Perrow.
Paperback, 386 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication Date: 1999-09-27
Edition: Updated

Reviews :

    Hang a curtain too close to a fireplace and you run the risk of setting your house ablaze. Drive a car on a pitch-black night without headlights, and you dramatically increase the odds of smacking into a tree.

These are matters of common sense, applied to simple questions of cause and effect. But what happens, asks systems-behavior expert Charles Perrow, when common sense runs up against the complex systems, electrical and mechanical, with which we have surrounded ourselves? Plenty of mayhem can ensue, he replies. The Chernobyl nuclear accident, to name one recent disaster, was partially brought about by the failure of a safety system that was being brought on line, a failure that touched off an unforeseeable and irreversible chain of disruptions; the less severe but still frightening accident at Three Mile Island, similarly, came about as the result of small errors that, taken by themselves, were insignificant, but that snowballed to near-catastrophic result.

Only through such failures, Perrow suggests, can designers improve the safety of complex systems. But, he adds, those improvements may introduce new opportunities for disaster. Looking at an array of real and potential technological mishaps--including the Bhopal chemical-plant accident of 1984, the Challenger explosion of 1986, and the possible disruptions of Y2K and genetic engineering--Perrow concludes that as our technologies become more complex, the odds of tragic results increase. His treatise makes for sobering and provocative reading. --Gregory McNamee ...

   

Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them.

The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it "may mark the beginning of accident research." In the new afterword to this edition Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster. The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the "quintessential 'Normal Accident'" of our time: the Y2K computer problem.

...

Authors: Andrew Keen.
Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Doubleday Business
Publication Date: 2008-08-12


Reviews :

    Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show

In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement.

Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors.

In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented.

The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While no Luddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions.

Offering concrete solutions on how we can rein in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us.


From the Hardcover edition....

Authors: Manuel Castells.
Paperback, 594 pages
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Publication Date: 2000-01-15
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    The Rise of the Network Society, the first volume in a trilogy collectively known as the Information Age, has earned Manuel Castells comparisons to such illustrious social critics as Max Weber and Karl Marx. Just as they worked to make sense of industrial capitalism, so does Castells put forth a systemic analysis of the global informational capitalism that emerged in the last half of the 20th century. While many books have considered the development of increasingly sophisticated information technology, the shifting conditions of employment and responsibility within corporations, or the rise of corporations whose domains are spread out over several nation-states, Castells unites these topics in a comprehensive thesis, negotiating the tightrope between academic sociology and mainstream business analysis. ...

    This book, the first in Castells' ground-breaking trilogy, is an account of the economic and social dynamics of the new age of information. Based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, it aims to formulate a systematic theory of the information society which takes account of the fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world....

Authors: Juan Enriquez.
Paperback, 259 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Publication Date: 2005-10-25


Reviews :

    In As the Future Catches You, Juan Enriquez of the Harvard Business School attempts to capture the trajectory of technological progress and understand the forces shaping our social and economic futures. Enriquez argues that February 2, 2001--the date that anyone with Internet access could contemplate the entire human genome--is akin to 1492 and Columbus's discovery of America. Instead of a new continent however, Enriquez sees the alphabet of DNA (A, adenine; T, thymine; C, cytosine; and G, guanine) and predicts that it will be the "dominant language and economic driver of this century." While none of the ideas presented here are entirely new, As the Future Catches You stands out because of Enriquez's ability to view and connect trends--genomics in particular--in a way that just about anyone can understand. Eye-popping typography and graphics coupled with a compact and almost poetic writing style make this thought-provoking book one to savor. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards...

    If you think the world has changed dramatically in the last five years, you haven’t seen anything yet.

You will never look at the world in the same way after reading As the Future Catches You. Juan Enriquez puts you face to face with unprecedented political, ethical, economic, and financial issues, dramatically demonstrating the cascading impact of the genetic, digital, and knowledge revolutions on all our lives.

Genetics will be the dominant language of this century. Those who can “speak it” will acquire direct and deliberate control over all forms of life. But most countries and individuals remain illiterate in what is rapidly becoming the greatest single driver of the global economy. The choice is simple: Either learn to surf new and powerful waves of change—or get crushed trying to stop them. The future is catching us all. Let it catch you with your eyes wide open....

Authors: Walter G Moss. Janice Terry. Jiu-Hwa Upshur.
Paperback, 312 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Publication Date: 1998-12-02
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    This is a collection of 75 selections, organized in 21 chapters, 3 chronological periods. The selections are accompanied by introductions to each period, chapter overviews, and selection introductions....

Authors: Manuel Castells.
Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Publication Date: 2000-01-15
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    Manuel Castells concludes the Information Age trilogy by considering the intersection of the global network society and factional project identities. As always, the scope of Castell's argument is far-ranging. Among the subjects addressed are the collapse of the Soviet Union; the potential emergence of the Asian Pacific as the next region of major world power; and the rapidly increasing growth of a "Fourth World"-- a series of "black holes of informational capitalism" (areas that have been cut off from the flow of wealth and information in the global economy) that refuses to confine itself to national borders--as likely to appear in the American inner city as it is in sub-Saharan Africa. He also raises the specter of a "global criminal economy," a dark counterpart to transnational corporations, and suggests that trends such as fascination with gangster movies "may well indicate the cultural breakdown of traditional moral order, and the implicit recognition of a new society, made up of communal identity and unruly competition." End of Millennium is perhaps the most accessible of Castell's three volumes, expertly reading the pulse of late-20th-century social trends. It's bound to provoke debate about any efforts to shape the trends of the 21st century. ...

    The final volume in Manuel Castells' trilogy is devoted to processes of global social change induced by interaction between networks and identity....

Authors: Scott Berkun.
Paperback, 192 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Publication Date: 2008-05-15


Reviews :

   

Scott Berkun Discusses Innovation at Amazon.com Headquarters

Scott Berkun, author of The Myths of Innovation and The Art of Project Management, visited Amazon.com to discuss "epiphany myths" and the realities--and effort--of implementing innovation in your own life and work. Watch the video: High bandwidth Low bandwidth Praise for The Myths of Innovation: "…Small, simple, powerful: an innovative book about innovation." --Don Norman, Nielsen Norman Group, Northwestern University; author of Emotional Design and Design of Everyday Things "The naked truth about innovation is ugly, funny, and eye-opening, but it sure isn't what most of us have come to believe. With this book, Berkun sets us free to try to change the world unencumbered with misconceptions about how innovation happens." --Guy Kawasaki, author of The Art of the Start "This book cuts through the hype, analyzes what is essential, and more importantly, what is not. You will leave with a thorough understanding of what really drives innovation." -- Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon.com

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...

    How do you determine whether a hot new technology will succeed or fail? Or where the next big idea will come from? If you subscribe to the popular myths of innovation, it's impossible to answer these questions. Our beliefs about how new ideas come about are based on wishful thinking and romanticized ideas of history. Like the story of how Newton discovered gravity when an apple hit him on the head.

In the new paperback edition of The Myths of Innovation, bestselling author Scott Berkun takes a careful look at the history of innovation, including the recent software and Internet age, to reveal powerful truths about how ideas become successful innovations -- truths that people can apply to the challenges of the present day. By understanding how Einstein's discovery of E=mc2 or Tim Berner Lee's creation of the Web were based on the re-use of work done by others, you will see new ways to develop existing knowledge into new innovations.

Each entertaining chapter centers on breaking apart a powerful myth. Through Berkun's extensive research into the truth about past innovations in technology, business and science, you'll learn lessons from the expensive failures and dramatic successes of innovations past, and understand how innovators achieved what they did -- and what you need to do to be an innovator yourself. You'll discover:

• Why breakthrough thinking takes time
• How all stories of innovations are distorted by the history effect
• How to overcome people's resistance to new ideas
• Why all innovation is a collaborative process
• How innovation depends on persuasion
• Why problems are more important than solutions
• How the good innovation is the enemy of the great
• Why the biggest challenge is knowing when it's good enough

"For centuries before Google, MIT, and IDEO, modern hotbeds of innovation, we struggled to explain any kind of creation, from the universe itself to the multitudes of ideas around us. While we can make atomic bombs, and dry-clean silk ties, we still don't have satisfying answers for simple questions like: Where do songs come from? Are there an infinite variety of possible kinds of cheese? How did Shakespeare and Stephen King invent so much, while we're satisfied watching sitcom reruns? Our popular answers have been unconvincing, enabling misleading, fantasy-laden myths to grow strong." -- Scott Berkun, from the text.

Scott Berkun is well-versed in the business of innovation. A member of the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft from 1994-1999, he wrote the 2008 bestseller, Making Things Happen (O'Reilly).

"This book cuts through the hype, analyzes what is essential, and more importantly, what is not. You will leave with a thorough understanding of what really drives innovation."

-- Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon.com

"I loved this book. It's an easy-to-read playbook for anyone wanting to lead and manage positive change in their business."

-- Frank McDermott, Marketing Manager, EMI Music

"Insightful, inspiring, evocative, and just plain fun to read it's totally great."

-- John Seely Brown, former Chief Scientist of Xerox, and Director, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC); current Chief of Confusion

"Small, simple, powerful: an innovative book about innovation."

-- Don Norman, Nielsen Norman Group, Northwestern University; author of Emotional Design and Design of Everyday Things

"The naked truth about innovation is ugly, funny, and eye-opening, but it sure isn't what most of us have come to believe. With this book, Berkun sets us free to try to change the world unencumbered with misconceptions about how innovation happens."

-- Guy Kawasaki, author of The Art of the Start

"Brimming with insights and historical examples, Berkun's book not only debunks widely held myths about innovation but also points the ways toward making your new ideas stick. Even in today's ultra-busy commercial world, reading this book will be time well spent."

-- Tom Kelley, GM, IDEO; author of The Ten Faces of Innovation...