A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A programmer, musician, and father of virtual reality technology, Jaron Lanier was a pioneer in digital media, and among the first to predict the revolutionary changes it would bring to our commerce and culture. Now, with the Web influencing virtually every aspect of our lives, he offers this provocative critique of how digital design is shaping society, for better and for worse.
 
Informed by Lanier’s

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Utilities around the world are racing to install smart utility meters, which are emerging as anything but smart. This documentary uncovers shocking evidence of in-home privacy, increased utility bills, health risks such as cancer, environmental harm, fires, and unprecedented hacking vulnerability, while lighting the path toward solutions. With compelling insight from whistleblowers, researchers, government agents, lawyers, doctors, and environmentalists....

The most enduring change wrought by the digital revolution is neither the new business models nor the new search algorithms, but rather the massive generation gap between those who were born digital and those who were not. The first generation of "digital natives"--children who were born into and raised in the digital world--is now coming of age, and soon our world will be reshaped in their image. Our economy, our cultural life, even the shape of...