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Future Hype

The Myths of Technology Change

Bob Seidensticker

$32.99

Hardback

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English
Berrett Koehler
01 January 2018
This fascinating look at innovations past and present-and our sometimes mistaken beliefs about them-""puts technological change into historical perspective"" (Henry Petroski, author of The Evolution of Useful Things).

Everyone knows that today's rate of technological change is unprecedented. With breakthroughs from the Internet to cell phones to digital music and pictures, everyone knows that the social impact of technology has never been as profound or overwhelming. But how much is truth and how much is hype?

Future Hype surveys the past few hundred years to show that many of the technologies we now take for granted transformed society in far more dramatic ways than more recent developments so often touted as unparalleled and historic. In this thoughtful book, Bob Seidensticker exposes the hidden costs of technology-and helps both consumers and businesses take a shrewder position when the next ""essential"" innovation is trotted out.
By:  
Imprint:   Berrett Koehler
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 154mm,  Spine: 19mm
Weight:   560g
ISBN:   9781576753705
ISBN 10:   1576753700
Pages:   240
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Preface Introduction: Leveling the Exponential Curve THE WAYS WE SEE TECHNOLOGY INCORRECTLY The Birthday-Present Syndrome The Perils of Prediction The Unintended Wager If It Ain’t Broke, Be Grateful More Powerful Than a Locomotive Faster Than a Speeding Bullet Leap Tall Buildings in a Single Bound Corrective Lenses THE MORE THINGS CHANGE . . . For Better or For Worse Playing with Matches Fear and Anxiety Technologies That Touch Us Innovation Stimulation What’s Mine Is Mine Conclusion: Vaccinate Against the Hype Notes Acknowledgments About the Author Index

Bob Seidensticker is a successful writer who graduated from MIT and then spent 25 years in the technology industry, including an 8-year stint at Microsoft as a project manager. He resigned from Microsoft in 1997 to write software as an independent developer and to pursue a writing career.

Reviews for Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change

A must-read for those who think the Internet changes everything. --Bob Frankston, VisiCalc developer and computer industry pioneer This clear-eyed, level-headed, historically sophisticated view of the realities of technological change by a knowledgeable insider will be absorbing reading for early adopters, neo-Luddites, and everyone in between. --Edward Tenner, author of Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences Future Hype is a great antidote to the familiar boosterism about unprecedented technological growth. Seidensticker puts technological change into historical perspective, which enables us to measure progress against what we have known, rather than against what we are promised. --Henry Petroski, Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and Professor of History, Duke University, and author of Pushing the Limits .. .. a wonderful compendium of the way the world works, and not just the way it should work. Future Hype reveals when we should be optimistic and when we should be skeptical.... An important contribution. --Michael Shermer, Publisher, Skeptic magazine and the Skeptic columnist for Scientific American


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