In Ray Bradbury’s dystopian sci-fi classic Fahrenheit 451, books are outlawed by the government in the 24th century.
According to Bradbury, this imagined ban didn’t happen overnight. It was preceded by gradual trivialization of information in general. People increasingly preferred TV sound-bites and frivolous, out-of-context nuggets of information over reasoned argument and well-researched books about important ideas.
Eventually, writers and readers of books became so culturally marginalized that it was easy for the government to just eliminate them and their work by burning down any home or building that contained books.
Bradbury’s nightmare is in fact happening, and way ahead of schedule.
In the 1984 novel Neuromancer, author William Gibson described a future in which “implants, nerve-splicing, and micro bionics” could turn people into internet-connected cyborgs.
If you like that idea, you’ll be happy to know that Google is working on it.
The company’s “Project Glass” augmented reality glasses is the first step toward Gibson’s cyborg vision. The glasses project images into one eye, enabling real life (what you see with your actual eyes) to acquire menu items, contextual information, turn-by-turn directions and more. You can take a picture by blinking your eye.
If the idea that augmented reality glasses are a first step toward being assimilated into the Borg, you should know that the head of the project in Google’s “Google X” labs, Babak Parviz, has already developed an electronic contact lens that can display data to the wearer’s eye.
The first step is glasses. The second is contact lenses. And the third is internet-connected eye implants.
Google isn’t the only organization taking these steps. Such technologies will soon become generally available. But will they come from Apple, too?
In a nutshell, Kazwell says Apple will wait and see how the market responds to Google’s Project Glass and he implies that Apple will follow Google into the cyborgification of mankind.
I think he’s wrong. I think Apple will never cross that line. Here’s why.
Last week, I published an opinion piece proposing that Apple open a corporate museum. It was also published on Forbes.com. The story started trending by Sunday evening. Then somewhat amusingly, it got buried first thing Monday morning by the wall-to-wall coverage of Ashton Kutcher, who’s to play Steve Jobs in an upcoming indie film. To be honest, I really wasn’t all that amused.
I live on the east coast, but I have been to Silicon Valley twice; visiting Apple’s mothership was a must-do for me.
Perhaps you feel the same way. It’s exciting for us fans, though all you can really do is park, take pictures out in front of the main 1 Infinite Loop building, and the Apple sign near the street, then visit The Company Store. It’s a special treat as they don’t sell Apple devices, they sell logoed items not found anywhere else. I don’t know if I would go so far as to call my visit a pilgrimage, but it was a top priority for me, if I was going to be anywhere near Silicon Valley.
What the world needs now isn’t love, sweet love. It needs more companies like Apple.
Critics slam Apple for not giving more to charity. It’s a reasonable complaint. Apple should be more philanthropic. Under Tim Cook they probably will be.
However, Apple helps the world in a far more profound way than some annual contribution to United Way.
Apple represents an approach to business that “lifts all boats,” to quote a well known cliche.
Apple is the global economy’s single most powerful economic force opposing a great death spiral in which margins are squeezed, goods get shoddier, people make less money and our lives just get cheaper in every way.
Another sunny day at the Foxconn factory. Photo Ged Carroll (CC BY 2.0)
Bleeding hearts the world over are very happy with the news that Apple and Foxconn are working together to make employee working conditions better in their Chinese factories. But there is a group of people who aren’t so pleased about the reductions in working hours: the workers themselves.
Mark Shields’ petition on Change.org sparked by Mike Daisey’s This American Life story earned over 250,000 online signatures and led to protests outside Apple stores across the country.
That doesn’t sit well with Paul Dost, who launched a counter petition after the TAL story was debunked. Cult of Mac reached out to Dost via email for the story behind the anti-petition petition.
Apple CEO Tim Cook this week talked about a “post-PC world.” Many people treated his comments as controversial, exaggerated or outright marketing lies.
In fact, everything Cook said about it was literally true and perfectly accurate. He said the post-PC revolution “is happening all around us at an amazing pace and Apple is at the forefront and leading this revolution.”
He didn’t say we currently live in a post-PC world, or that in the future PCs would not exist. He specifically said “we’re talking about a world where the PC is no longer the center of your digital world.”
What he didn’t say — so I will — was that the transition from the PC world to the post-PC world involves a transition from a Microsoft world to an Apple world.
For the past few decades, Windows has been the dominant platform and Mac OS has been a minority operating system. Here’s why their positions will be reversed in the years to come.
Like trying to demonstrate a stereo through the speaker of a mono TV, or showing an ad for a color TV on a black and white set, it’s almost impossible to show off the new iPad’s Retina Display on your sucky old low-res screen. Almost, but not quite. As you can see from the picture above, Apple has added a clever interactive loupe to the iPad’s Features page.
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