« Great lakes of Titan | Main | Technorati's upgrade » Rainbows EndStewart Brand reviews Vernor Vinge's latest, Rainbows End, in which everybody's real world is draped with arrays of private and shared virtual realities, and "Search and Analysis" is the core skill taught to the young and the rejuvenated old as "the heart of the economy." It turns out that the crux of a Search and Analysis world (and of Vinge's narrative) is this: who knows what, and how, and how is their knowing displayed or cloaked? Brand notes that Vinge has influenced the thinking behind Internet development in the past, and in this book proposes concepts that might catch on, as well, like "'Secure Hardware Environment' as the deeply reliable and unhackable foundation of everything online and virtual" and "'certificate authorities' that offer people jon posted this at 7:55 AM |
read weblogsky! latest posts: |
Comments
Thanks for the book recco. Just put it on reserve at my library and made a library card for it:
http://www.aadl.org/cat/ccimg/1268380/savecard/?uid=890&card=1&comment1=1964&comment2=&comment3=&c1_font=cherylhand&c2_font=kristenscript&c3_font=Chelsea
My "private shared virtual reality" experience lately has been driving for hours and hours after spending a few hours on Second Life. Suddenly all of the signs on the highway have imaginary (and much easier to read) bubbles above them telling me what they are, and the billboards are way too interesting. The effect wore off after a few hours but it was distracting at best.
Posted by: Edward Vielmetti | July 31, 2006 3:54 PM