How the Information Revolution Has Changed the World Essay Example for Free

How the Information Revolution Has Changed the World Essay Michael Dertouzos wrote What Will Be: How the New World of Information Will Change Our Lives in 1997, before the real Information Revolution even literally began. In fact, the internet as it is known today was still in its infancy in the late nineties. It was not uncommon, even when 2000 rolled around, to not own a home computer, especially a laptop. And, it wasn’t until 2005 that email became as popular, if not more so, with the American public as a cell phone. With that said, Dertouzos’ work is one of speculation and an insider’s observations of the situations and realities thought to be held by a future in the rowing information technology world. In an interesting twist, Dertouzos was fortunate enough to have his Forward written by Bill Gates, one of the most influential and significant minds in the world, and whose name is synonymous with success in the Information Revolution, to offer his unique authority to the opinions on emerging technologies and their effect on the future of the world presented within. Gates recognizes that while Dertouzos is a true visionary and his predictions for the future have often come to be, but he also admits that they have differing opinions on how the future will evolve. Eventually, Gates comes to the conclusion that â€Å"new businesses will be created and fortunes will be made in the novel areas of activity this book describes . † The Forward ends on an encouraging note for the reader, commenting that the Information Revolution is something not to be taken lightly, and that those who choose to take part will find their lives one filled with great and exciting changes. Dertouzos offers a Preface for a general breakdown on how his book is organized, and compiles his information into three parts; Part One relating his own experiences in the realm of information technology, Part Two describing how a reader’s life will become influenced by the growing changes, and Part Three illustrating how society as a whole will be affected and ultimately altered ceaselessly by the Information Revolution. In this manner, Dertouzos is setting himself up as not only the author of this information, but also as an authority on this information, which is an insightful and crafty manner of proclaiming his vision for the future. Part One opens with Dertouzos’ experiences, starting in the early 1990’s, and does well to explain his infatuation for technology and how it influenced his decisions and his life, even so early on. He called himself a visionary from the beginning, claiming that his â€Å"vision [for technology] has been consistent†¦humming along like a well-tuned engine as time goes by . † And, to illustrate his point, he relates a few clever vignettes that make good use of computerized automatic alerts and early entrepreneurialism. His language is clever and expressive while he chronicles anecdotes on his early impressions of the internet and how he sought to see the Information Marketplace, as he has taken to calling the internet, as something bigger than anything originally predicted for the future of computers. In fact, Dertouzos can be seen as a true authority in this Part because his information is entirely encyclopedic, offering and presenting the basic timeline of how computers and the internet began to emerge from the early highly expensive models to something the regular Joe could actually afford. Because, as Dertouzos knew it, and envisioned it, the Information Market would win out over the high costs of creating such a beast because, over time, more and more people would demand information readily at their fingertips. Which turned out to be true. In Part Two, Dertouzos paints a viable picture for a reader on how their life will be forever altered and what exciting things they can anticipate as technology continues to advance. In one anecdote he tells the life of a corporate business man asking his car for directions via a GPS, though he calls such a thing â€Å"spotty † at best. In this, Dertouzos channels Orwell and actually does well to predict the future. Now, cars not only have GPS systems built in as practically standard equipment, but they also have emergency help at the touch of a button, rear view camera sensors, DVD players the size of a small book installed in head rests, and the new Lexus can even parallel park on its own. Then, he relates his vision for the future of shoe shopping, in which a woman can go to a shoe outlet, have her sizes, each foot being slightly different, virtually recorded, and her shoes made to exacting specifications. He admits that current technology is far from his actual vision, even seeming to dismiss his little tale out of hand, though he does come to a conclusion and concedes that online shopping will grant â€Å"individual attention that is reinforced by the fact that no two human bodies or minds are exactly alike . † Once again, Dertouzos has become a prophet for the future. Now, online stores sell everything from pet food to locks of hair from Britney Spears, and everything in between. The interesting fact is that many brick and mortar stores, understanding well the need to compete with the growing online market, now have virtual reality â€Å"fitters† that can accurately size a person for perfectly tailored clothing. Moreover, online shopping has hit an all time high, bringing in billions of dollars of revenue every quarter, with virtually no roof for the potential profit of an internet entrepreneur. While the â€Å"auto-shoe † is still a ways off, virtual reality has made difficulty in sizing a thing of the past. Part Two also introduces the rise of online gaming and touches on what is now called Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, or MMORPG, in which thousands of players around the world can â€Å"run into one another, sometimes helping or hindering their mates, subject to the rules of the game and human nature . † Games like â€Å"Ever Quest,† â€Å"Halo,† and â€Å"Might and Magic† have long been known as being part of the most addicting genre of game-playing that exists because of the environment created in the online world. While Dertouzos was entirely hesitant in proclaiming such a thing would come to be, he does point out that these games could evolve from more primitive forms like card games or â€Å"Dungeons and Dragons,† which, in fact, they did. In Part Three, Dertouzos begins by relating that humans are instinctively â€Å"ancient † by nature, finding it difficult to accept and understand the Information Marketplace for what it could mean for the world’s future. As is his way, Dertouzos attempts to explain this with an anecdote comparing potatoes to information citing that â€Å"because information is easily replicated it proliferates and is not scarce. And because economic value is rooted in scarcity, information has little or no value . † He goes on to explain that of course information has value, but he doesn’t seem to grasp what can only be seen recently, because the internet has evolved as much as it has since his vision in 1997, when information was a real scarcity online. In fact, readily accessible information, even for a price, is the fundamental reason that the internet has become so successful, selling more and gaining more visitors than online shopping because people go online expecting to find information. And, the more information that can be found on any given subject, the more a visitor has to compare and choose from. In all things, even information, people expect choice and they expect to find something that suits their needs, even if they have to pay a few extra dollars for it. Moreover, Ebooks are now selling at higher rates than paper books in brick and mortar bookstores because of their very capacity to be downloaded and read at any time of the night. Near the end, Dertouzos mentions that it would be handy for a Greek to be able to access the world of being Greek without having to travel to the country. He notes that â€Å"even as we scatter, the Information Marketplace can help us nurture our ethnic heritage, further reducing the need to a traditional, physically local nation . † Just recently, webcams have been used for surveying events, watching sunsets, and even talking online, yet face-to-face, with loved ones. While he seemed unsure on how his dream could come to be, it has, and to such a degree that sites like YouTube have sprung up, giving people access to virtually any sort of information they wished to view, from the entirely extreme and disturbing, to cathedral services, like Dertouzos imagined. Overall, Dertouzos calls himself a visionary, writing this book about his predictions for the future of the Information Revolution and what that will bring for individuals as well as society at large. His predictions, while sometimes written with hesitance, have, for the most part, all come true. In fact, much of the evolvement of the internet and the Information Marketplace between 1997 and 2007 has surpassed even his original theories, bringing true wealth to people who want to work at home, joy to a gamer who is able to find friends in an online world where dragons rule and the most powerful sorcerer gets the princess, and even the ability to chat online via webcam with family from across the world to enhance and nurture a heritage.