Talking Back to the Machine Softcover Reprint of the Original 1st Ed. 1999 edition

Description for Sales People: From the editors of the wildly successful Beyond Calculation, acclaimed by the New York Times for its "astonishing intellectual reach," comes a new collection of equal brilliance. Focusing on the human impact of computers, Talking to the Machine features such outstanding thinkers as Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, bestselling author James Burke, Defense Secretary William Perry and others, as they describe the many ways, both good and bad, in which our lives will be altered by information technology, and what we can do to influence these changes. Table of Contents: Content.- 1. The Folly of Prediction.- 2. Life Without Bits.- 3. Alternative Computing.- 4. Very Personal Computers.- 5. I, Software.- 6. The Lost Art of Storytelling.- 7. The Digital Battlefield.- 8. Entering the Age of Convenience.- 9. In the Belly of the Net.- 10. When Computers Become Human.- 11. A Half Century of Surprises.- 12. The Interactive Classroom.- 13. Delivering Bandwidth Like Pizza.- 14. Weird Futures.- 15. Teleportation, Time Travel, and Immortality.- 16. Pulling Diamonds from the Clay.- Closing Connections.- The Relics of 97."

Contributor Bio:  Denning, Peter J Peter J. Denning is Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. Contributor Bio:  Burke, J Janine Burke is the award-winning author of fifteen books of art history, biography, and fiction. She has put togeter art exhibitions, written for newspapers and journals, and acted as a consultant for films and documentaries.