Gigabyte P

By Gary Stix and Miriam Lacob

Which new technologies will have the biggest impact on our lives in the years ahead? Find out in this text. It takes the reader on a journey through the brave new world of gene therapy, virtual corporations, and recyclable cars, in a fast-paced look at the most important developments in genetics, medicine, cybernetics, telecommunications, nanotechnology, robotics, environmental cleanup, energy, and more. Based on interviews with leading technology developers as well as extensive research of the scientific literature, the book explains what the new technologies are, how they work, how they will most likely evolve in the near future, and how they will affect our lives in the next century.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471379107
• ISBN13: 9780471379102
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.7" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

I learned a Gigabyte!

Who Gives a Gigabyte? A survival guide for technologically Perplexed was a perfect book for me. It is immensely readable and takes the most profoundly sophisticated concepts such as the sequencing of the human genome and quantum computing, and allows the interested, but uninitiated reader, a cursory understanding of these new technologies and how they may affect our lives in this new century. Topics included in this book are - Computing and telecommunication, bioengineering, laser technology, alternate energy sources, advanced diagnostics and imaging, and technology and the environment. This book is packed with exciting, intriguing information and concepts; the future alone will allow us to know where these new products and possibilities will take us.For example; in the chapter on Lasers' The light Fantastic, the authors illuminate the technology of how lasers are able to provide science-fiction type warfare, optical communications, the ubiquitous bar-code scanner, DVD players and microscopic surgery. What an amazingly versatile technology!I remember going to Disneyland's Tomorrowland in the 1960s. It was full of "glimpses of the future" with robots, people movers, rocket packs to take you where you wanted to go, and a Voyage to Mars.... And the home of the future - with machines that washed, dried and pressed your clothes all in one! This was the world of 2000! Hardly! Who Gives a Gigabyte? A survival guide for the technologically perplexed concludes by reminding us of these whimsical views of the future shaped by Leonardo da Vinci, Jules Verne and Disneyland, and leaves us with the question of why has our future not kept pace with our dreams of it? The conclusion is that interest in ambitious technology has slowed due to the basic questions of cost and practicality. "To succeed, a good technology must be useful, and it must be able to survive the gauntlet of the marketplace as well as economic and social conditions and government policies". However, the authors are quick to admit that timing, luck and the vagaries of human opinion has just as big an effect on what makes it and what does not. Technology has gotten us into the world we have today, and it appears that only more technology can get us out. I recommend this book for those of us who are intrigued with technology of all sorts, but lack the technical expertise, vocabulary and content understanding to obtain this knowledge through journals and trade magazines. Read it! What an adventure we are in for!