The Internet Edge: Social, Technical, and Legal Challenges for a Networked World - Softcover

Stefik, Mark J

Softcover

ISBN 10: 026269249X ISBN 13: 9780262692496

Publisher: MIT Press, 2000

Synopsis

This book is an eagle's eye view of the Internet edge. It is about the experiences of those who encountered similar issues as they built precursors to the Net such as videotext, teletext, and the Source.

Sometimes when we face change, we feel conflicting forces driving us forward and pulling us back. This place of tension and confusion can be called an "edge." The "Internet edge" is our collective struggle to change as the world becomes more connected. Turmoil at the Internet edge occurs around interacting social, legal, and technological realms. Examples include issues of online privacy, censorship, digital copyright, and untaxed business competition over the Net. Such issues reflect conflicts between values―local and global, individual and corporate, democratic and nondemocratic. This book is an eagle's eye view of the Internet edge. It is about the experiences of those who encountered similar issues as they built precursors to the Net such as videotext, teletext, and the Source. It is about the trends in technology that will make the Net of the next few years a very different experience from the desktop surfing of today. Finally, it is about how old myths of magic, power, and control can help us to understand our fascination with and fear of new technologies.

About this title

Review:

It's hard enough keeping up with today's advances in technology without worrying about tomorrow's--but that's always where the action is. Xerox PARC scientist Mark Stefik gets paid to think about and act on future technology, and his fascinating, enjoyable report, The Internet Edge, shows us what we're becoming as our information technology gets more ubiquitous and transparent.

Suits and nerds alike will love his pragmatic, brainstorming style that reaches back into our technological history to make sense of the road ahead. Chapters cover portability, digital commerce, publishing, privacy, and more, examining changes in the breadth of our social experience as well as our work lives. What will libraries look like in 10 years? What will "trust" mean in a world of instant information access? Will we ever stop watching television?

Stefik addresses these questions and goes beyond them to ask about the meaning of rapid change in our lives: how will we cope? He presents a convincing picture of a culture struggling with inevitable transformation, with thousands of small changes absorbed but not fully understood. Change is always stressful, even the many new Net-derived benefits he describes. Our best hope to survive the transition is deeper analysis of what's happening to us and why, which you'll find in The Internet Edge. --Rob Lightner

About the Author:

Mark Stefik in an inventor and Research Fellow at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where he directs the Information Sciences and Technologies Laboratory.

About this edition

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 026269249X
• ISBN 13: 9780262692496
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 344