What Just Happened

We are quick to acknowledge that our lives have been transformed by technology over the last ten years - that virtual reality has become as permanent a fixture in our lives as material reality; but the arrival of the electronic world over the last ten years was not a single invention, nor a single event; it could not be encompassed in a single moment. The last ten years can be characterized in three ways: the speed, the hysteria and the remarkable range of devices, aspects, and larger ramifications of what happened. Everyone knows about the accelerated pace of our lives. Everyone recognizes that the clamour has become unprecedented, but as much as we have all lived through the last ten years, it is hard to grasp the extent and expanse of what has happened. In 'Bits in the Ether', Jim Gleick sets down in chronological order the swirling bits and pieces of change: the new gadgets and the old that now have been given new power and new life - the resources - how the old resources have suddenly been enlivened by instant availability.