Everyone knows that today's rate of technological change is unprecedented. With technological breakthroughs from the Internet to cell phones to digital music and pictures, everyone knows that the social impact of technology has never been as profound.
But everyone is wrong. In fact, the pace of change isn't notably faster than in times past and most 'revolutionary" technologies are just refinements of past breakthroughs. Take, for example, developments in the telecommunications industry. The telegraph made it possible to communicate instantly across thousands of miles for the first time in human history. That was a big deal. The cell phone allows you to do the same thing walking down the street. It's cool, but it's just not nearly as fundamental a break with the past. Using dozens of entertaining examples, high-tech industry veteran Bob Seidensticker debunks nine technology myths, proving that:
Future Hype surveys the past few hundred years to show that many of the technologies we now take for granted transformed society in far more dramatic ways than recent developments so often touted as unparalleled and historic. Seidensticker exposes the hidden costs of technology and will help both consumers and businesses take a shrewder position when the next 'essential' innovation is trotted out.