The Technology Revolution: The Not-for-dummies Guide to the Impact, Perils, And Promise of the Internet - Softcover

J. R. Okin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0976385716 ISBN 13: 9780976385714

Publisher: Ironbound Pr, 2005

Synopsis

Prior to the commercialization and privatization of the Internet in the early 1990s, the subject of technology, not unlike its use, was something that engaged and concerned a very small number of individuals and a relatively small number of businesses. Today, we are inundated with technology, and technology-based businesses can be found across the globe. Computers are in our homes, businesses, schools, libraries, and corner coffee shops, and many of us carry these devices with us wherever we go or rely on smaller networked devices, like cellular phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), to keep us connected and reachable at all times. The businesses that manufacture these devices or provide related services and support range in size from startups that employ a couple of people to multi-national corporations that employ tens of thousands of people. The proliferation of these businesses and the proliferation of the high-tech devices that we use and see around us every day are a sign of the times. We are living in the midst of a technology revolution, and for better or worse it has only just begun.

The Technology Revolution examines the impact, perils, and promise of the Internet and its technology.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

How do you name, describe, or characterize something that includes the potential to interconnect everyone on the planet? How do you evaluate or speculate on the significance of a system that can provide access to any and all types of information, particularly when that information can be located anywhere and stored in any number of different ways? Where do you start in studying the effects of a technology that gave form and meaning to the existence of virtual communities and instituted entirely new ways for people to communicate with one another and to share their ideas, feelings, and, ultimately, themselves? The answers all begin and end with the individual. No matter how you look at it, all of these questions, and many others just like them, lead back to you and me. They speak to the role the Internet has to play in relation to the daily life of the individual and, conversely, to the role the individual has to play in the daily workings of the Internet. TCP/IP brought the Internet onto our computers. But we brought the Internet into our lives and, in doing so, we shaped the Internet into what we see today.The Internet is a global computer network, interconnecting smaller, independent networks located throughout the world, the computers that compose those networks, and the people who own, operate, and use those computers. The Internet houses a vast quantity of information that is both broadly diverse in content and widely distributed in location. It carries countless messages every minute of every day. It brings together and engages people in such virtual constructs as interactive gaming environments and cyberspace recreations of meeting rooms, office buildings, and entire cityscapes.The Internet provides equally well for the commercial needs of corporations, the infrastructure needs of governments, the community needs of non-profit organizations, and the personal needs of individuals. It functions as a new realm for commerce, creating whole new business enterprises, changing the supply and distribution of commodities and services, and radically altering how many jobs are performed. It challenges our long-standing definitions of community and social interaction. It attracts and commands the attention of the young, the not-so-young, and people of every age in between.This book explores the Internet's impact, perils, and promise.

From the Back Cover

Discover the REVOLUTION that is the INTERNET

This plain language guide explains:

- How information access on the Internet is impacting our privacy.
- How the Internet created the Digital Divide, what this divide looks like, and what it means.
- How Java became the "next big thing," and what it contributes to the Internet.
- Why the Internet is far greater than the sum of its parts.
- What caused the dot com boom, why the bubble burst.
- Why security is considered key to the Internet's future, and the role that trust will play in delivering security.
- How the Internet is responsible for building new types of community structures.
- Why the Internet is the revolution of our times.

The Technology Revolution is the third volume of a 3-book series that also includes:

- The Internet Revolution: The Not-For-Dummies Guide to the History, Technology, and Use of the Internet and

- The Information Revolution: The Not-For-Dummies Guide to the History, Technology, and Use of the World Wide Web.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ironbound Pr
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0976385716
• ISBN 13: 9780976385714
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288