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Functioning as both a seminal look into pop culture's past as well as a fun, technological romp, Ready Player One is a fantastic tale centered around Wade Watts, a teenager and dedicated gamer in the year 2044. Having almost no family, few friends, and seemingly even fewer avenues open to him to escape his downtrodden existence, Wade has had a difficult life, to say the least. However, what Wade does have is access to the OASIS; a cyber-reality which will change his life forever.
REPLICANTS ARE BIOENGINEERED HUMANS. DESIGNED BY TYRELL CORPORATION FOR USE OFF-WORLD. THEIR ENHANCED STRENGTH MADE THEM IDEAL SLAVE LABOR
THEY ARE HUNTED DOWN AND 'RETIRED'
THOSE THAT HUNT THEM STILL GO BY THE NAME
BLADE RUNNER
As a director of Search at Microsoft, Stefan Weitz, in his book Search, focuses on the future of predictive search that cuts out the human action necessary to utilize current search options and applications. Now, one can search for services, but the user has to take action in order to obtain them. In the future, Weitz posits that the system will know the user well enough to cut out this middle step. Through the capable web, people will be able to “take action, not just find information” (pg. 8).
Have you ever questioned the reliability of your own memory? Do you wish you had a record of everything you encountered so you could refer to it later? What if having this capability meant that other people had access to information about you without your consent?
Feed reminded me of the people in WALL-E who spent their lives sitting on mobile chairs, having all their needs taken care of. Of course, the people in Feed do walk around, and they’re on earth (mostly) not on a spaceship. Still, the inability, or at least the disinclination, to think for oneself, is the same.
It’s been a month since I watched the first season of Extant, but it’s still with me. It’s that quiet place I go to when I’m zoning out. The set design offers a vision of a gentler, more organic future, where technology is less obtrusively integrated into our daily lives than perhaps it is now. It’s the silent actor that sets a tone of calm, but there are tensions, to be sure. The introduction of a life-like android prototype into the functions of everyday life invites antagonism from many fronts, including a militant anti-technology group.
What more could you ask for in a book about people who love words and communication and the preservation of that communication? When I started reading The Word Exchange I had no access to a dictionary and definitely needed one. I almost gave up right away but decided to pick my adult children's brains and see if I could continue. Nope, they didn't know those words either, so I continued to read. I was fascinated by how the book drew me in and made me want to learn the meaning behind the words, but I definitely felt lost a time or two.
