Once, everything you needed for your computer was contained in the plastic or metal casing. You bought software in a box. Now your devices are access points, a way onto the internet. Software gets downloaded or used through your browser. The old and outdated business model was that you The way we use computers has changed forever. The old and outdated business model was that you competed and strove for a monopoly.
You wanted to quash your competitors. We forget that history is an excellent teacher. Warren Buffett, for example, used history to dodge the dot com bubble. If computing affects your investments or your business, you want to read this book. Jul 02, Jan rated it liked it Shelves: non-fiction.
Ask just about anyone who knows me well and they'll tell you that I could not care less about anything to do with computers. When it comes to computers, I want to know two things: "Is it working?
So it's a bit surprising that a book about computing made it onto my reading list. I think I stumbled across it on a list of "important books that you absolutely have to read," and it sounded intere Ask just about anyone who knows me well and they'll tell you that I could not care less about anything to do with computers. I think I stumbled across it on a list of "important books that you absolutely have to read," and it sounded interesting, so on my list it went, and languished for many years, as many books do because my reading list is very long.
All that being said, I thought this book was both very readable and accessible for someone who knows nothing about computers and likes it that way. It kept me engaged, I never felt lost, and I learned a lot. I think where it shines is in the early chapters, where it compares the rise of and evolution of computing to the rise of and evolution of electricity. Later chapters, which dealt issues of where computing could go wrong, were, I felt, a touch histrionic although not off-base; just the tone was a little histrionic.
Also, even though it isn't THAT old, it's amazing how much of it is already out-of-date. It's truly astounding, how rapidly our world is changing! View 1 comment. Apr 29, Jim Nielsen rated it really liked it.
I love Carr's writing on technology. I read this book over six years after it was published, but most of it was still quite relevant to today's tech scene. He has such a fascinating way of seeing through overhyped technology and revealing the often overlooked effects it has on our humanity. Dec 03, Jan rated it it was amazing.
Thorough, well-researched and documented. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I read Carr's The Shallows before I read this book. He wrote this one first, and there is some overlap. However, the comparison between the effects of electricity in our society and the Internet on our society were not as pronounced in The Shallows. This book gives an excellent, well-researched, and well-cited history of the adoption of electricity and its evolution into a utility.
Carr then aptly compares the gradual evolution of electric utilities to the current evolution of computing that is h I read Carr's The Shallows before I read this book.
Carr then aptly compares the gradual evolution of electric utilities to the current evolution of computing that is happening now. It's a good and valid point. Just as manufacturers and production facilities once generated their own power and eventually moved into the electric grid when AC power and huge centralized power facilities that could distribute electricity far and wide became possible, corporations and small businesses are finding themselves able to make moves from providing their own computing infrastructure to using remote computing as a utility that can be centralized at large data centers and distributed far and wide.
In this comparison, faster and wider data connections are like AC current. Carr does a good job of point out the similarities as well as the differences between the two. For example, with electricity the juice is always on the production and distribution side but the application is always on the consumption side. With computing, not only can the data be transferred to the consumption side the actual applications can be transferred as well. Some discussion of the breakdowns in the comparison are provided and welcomed.
It's not a perfect comparison, but it is a good and strikingly poignant one. The histories provided are fascinating if a bit familiar to me. I love how Carr chooses really great quotes from poets, writers, and scientists that echo and encapsulate the culture and progress happening at different times in history. Carr tells us that a visitor, L. Frank Baum, was so dazzled by the fair that it became the inspiration for the Emerald City in his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
So, even if these histories are familiar to me, they hold my interest with a dialogue of the time. Central to Carr's theme in both The Shallows and this book is the transition of one cultural defining technology and the embrace of the next. In The Shallows, this transition was a bit more sinister, that of books to the Internet. It also described an abandoning of books and an embrace of Internet technology and how it would change us.
In The Big Switch, we are not abandoning electricity and embracing utility computing. These discussions, to me, are the most interesting. He does manage to make some great connections between our abandoning of fire, candle-light and families crowding around one light and heat source at night to discuss the day and practice togetherness to the more autonomous family spurred by electricity. People can spend more time alone and in their own rooms since we have cheap independent power.
There are subtle connections between these and his points about computing and the Internet--anti-social ramifications of new technologies. But, Carr is not a doomsayer. He stresses that technology is amoral. He just explores our cultural responses through the citation of studies, artists, and scientists.
One of the best parts is where Carr talks about the natural dichotomy of computing and the Internet. Where individuals and early "hippy" computer scientists saw it as purely a revolutionary, anarchistic, or at least democratic tool governments and corporations see it as a tool for control. And, Carr correctly points out that the original and most natural use of a computer is a tool for control. That was, after all, the original point of computing.
I can't remember the exact quote, but he quotes someone who says something to the effect of "blindly embracing progress for the sake of progress is folly. We should be fully aware of the benefits of new technologies and the sacrifices we're making in their wake. In this, he sheds a lot of light, for me on something I've noticed in computer science.
He doesn't spell it out discretely, but it does seem as though many of those in my field have been forming a new religion. It is based on the same premise of old religions--that humans are fundamentally flawed. The founders of Google believe this.
Many computer scientists seem to believe this. And they believe that the computer, the Internet, and Artificial Intelligence is our salvation. And many of the visions of the young, brilliant, millionaires of today are based on this. And many of them have childish and unchecked goals that in the future will seem as ridiculous as those goals outlined by quack electrical futurists who claimed that electricity would cure all disease by continually pumping the air with charged particles or pumping human bodies with clean electricity.
These new futurists claim that the computer will improve our flawed humanity by categorizing the world's information, holding all of our information so we don't have to remember it, and telling us what and how to think. So, this book is like a dozen years old and I felt drawn to read it out of some romantic, wistful, nostalgic recollection of time in the aughts working through the Y2K sweats to be part of innovation in the "application service provider" era of internet-based solutions.
There is a lot of that recollection in the first part here, tied largely to the fretful development of the electrical grid and the similar disruptions, fears, and invention. Then I get taken through confronting the facts that had So, this book is like a dozen years old and I felt drawn to read it out of some romantic, wistful, nostalgic recollection of time in the aughts working through the Y2K sweats to be part of innovation in the "application service provider" era of internet-based solutions.
Then I get taken through confronting the facts that had observation and awareness on back then on the ultimately divisive nature of the web as we have seen through social media. Walking us through the continued demise of newspapers due to this second electronic medium I think Marconi put the first knife into the back of the paperboy.
We may find that the culture of abundance being produced by the World Wide Computer is really just a culture of mediocrity—many miles wide but only a fraction of an inch deep. He was curious about the persistence of extreme racial segregation in the country. Most of us have a preference, if only a slight one, to be near at least some people who are similar to ourselves. Schelling wondered whether such small biases might, over the long run, influence the makeup of neighborhoods.
He began his experiment by drawing a grid of squares on a piece of paper, creating a pattern resembling an oversized checkerboard.
Each square represented a house lot. He then randomly placed a black or a white marker in some of the squares. Each marker represented either a black or a white family. It was a fully integrated community. He then made a further assumption: that each family would prefer to have some nearby neighbors of the same color as themselves.
If the percentage of neighbors of the same color fell beneath 50 percent, a family would have a tendency to move to a new house. On the basis of that one simple rule, Schelling began shifting the markers around the grid. He continued moving the pieces until no marker had neighbors that were more than 50 percent of the other color. All the white markers had congregated in one area, and all the black markers had congregated in another. A modest, natural preference to live near at least a few people sharing a similar characteristic had the effect, as it influenced many individual decisions, of producing a sharp divide in the population.
It was a profound insight, one that, years later, would be cited by the Royal Swedish Society of Sciences when it presented Schelling with the Nobel Prize in Economics.
On the face of it, that expectation seems entirely reasonable. After all, the Internet erases the physical boundaries that separate us, allows the free exchange of information about the thoughts and lives of others, and provides an egalitarian forum in which all views can get an airing.
Not only will the process of polarization tend to play out in virtual communities in the same way it does in neighborhoods, but it seems likely to proceed much more quickly online. In the real world, with its mortgages and schools and jobs, the mechanical forces of segregation move slowly. There are brakes on the speed with which we pull up stakes and move to a new house. Internet communities have no such constraints. Making a community-defining decision is as simple as clicking a link.
Every time we subscribe to a blog, add a friend to our social network, categorize an email message as spam, or even choose a site from a list of search results, we are making a decision that defines, in some small way, whom we associate with and what information we pay attention to.
We would click our way to a fractured society. Greatly amplifying the polarization effect are the personalization algorithms and filters that are so common on the Internet and that often work without our permission or even our knowledge. Every time we buy a book at Amazon or rent a movie from Netflix or view a news story at Reddit, the site stores information about our choice in a personal profile and uses it to recommend similar products or stories in the future.
But over the long run, the more we click, the more we tend to narrow the information we see. I can't really articulate on how disappointed I am in our society and the self-destructive use of our own technology.
I am thinking here of the aboriginal Eastern Islanders worshipping statues and engaging in civil war rather than collaboratively cooperate to face the shortcomings of their worldview and lifestyle. We see considerable evidence of such schisms today, particularly in the so-called blogosphere.
Political blogs have divided into two clearly defined and increasingly polarized camps: the liberals and the conservatives.
Another study of the political blogosphere, by Matthew Hindman, a political scientist at Arizona State University, found a similar polarization. Rather than examining the links contained in the blogs, Hindman looked at the actual traffic flows between them.
He found that the vast majority of readers tend to stay within the bounds of either the liberal or the conservative sphere. Liberals listen almost exclusively to other liberals, and conservatives listen almost exclusively to other conservatives. About half of the participants were conservatives from Colorado Springs, while the other half were liberals living in Boulder.
After the participants completed, in private, questionnaires about their personal views on the three topics, they were split into ten groups—five conservative and five liberal. Each group then spent some time discussing the issues, with the goal of reaching a consensus on each one. After the discussion, the participants again filled out questionnaires. The results of the study were striking. Deliberation thus increased extremism. Second, every group showed increased consensus, and decreased diversity, in the attitudes of [its] members….
Third, deliberation sharply increased the differences between the views of the largely liberal citizens of Boulder and the largely conservative citizens of Colorado Springs. Before deliberation began, there was considerable overlap between many individuals in the two different cities.
After deliberation, the overlap was much smaller. The study revealed a fact about human nature and group dynamics that psychologists have long recognized: the more that people converse or otherwise share information with other people who hold similar views, the more extreme their views become. Here again, as Brynjolfsson and Van Alstyne note in their article, filtering and personalization technologies are likely to magnify the effect.
The effect is not merely a tendency for members to conform to the group average but a radicalization in which this average moves toward extremes. Maybe it was too early to tell then We already find it easier to Google something a second or third time rather than remember it ourselves.
The more we teach this megacomputer, the more it will assume responsibility for our knowing. It will become our memory. Then it will become our identity We have a deficit of wonder right now. Jun 24, Stephen rated it really liked it Shelves: giveaways-first-reads , science-medicine-and-psychology , history-non-fiction. I received this book for free from a Goodreads First Reads giveaway!
The Big Switch originally hit shelves in At that time, people were not sure about the whole "cloud computing" movement. This book is the re-release with a new afterword by the author.
And now everyone has embraced the cloud just 5 years later ok, not everyone, but far more than in This book is divided into three distinct parts that each focus on a different aspect of the grand move to cloud, or utility, computi I received this book for free from a Goodreads First Reads giveaway! This book is divided into three distinct parts that each focus on a different aspect of the grand move to cloud, or utility, computing.
The first section describes the rise of electric power and the eventual switch to centralized utility providers to supply the electric needs of consumers. The author outlines the many parallels between electricity and computing. These parallels include how all-important the industry has become to everyday life. This part of the book was both informative and utterly fascinating.
The next part of the book sang the praises of the switch to utility computing and listed many benefits that have already been realized in this infancy period for the cloud. The author also gives many examples of great things that can and will come in the future due to the rise of the cloud. The last section switches gears from the beginnings of the book. The author sends out a dire warning of the many dangers and pitfalls that are becoming a reality in the cloud era.
Privacy issues NSA, right? The new afterword updates the book with all of the new information that has come along in the last 5 years. The author also points out the parts of his predictions that are already coming true and makes a few more prognostications along the way.
I get the impression that the author sees the cloud as a grand change in humanity that could be great and wonderful except for the fact that it is being created and implemented by people.
So, his overwhelming sense of dread for the future isn't tempered by optimism because the cons may just outweigh the pros in this case. What do I think after reading this? I am in awe of the scope that utility computing already has encompassed.
However, I am fearful for the future because we have already seen many of the examples from the author's warnings come to pass and I believe most of them will be a reality over the next few years.
So, as much as I like Facebook and Amazon and Goodreads, I am less optimistic for our future in the cloud computing era. I do recommend this to anyone interested in computing, history, futurist predictions, social media, or social politics. Author Nicholas Carr's insightful and easily accessible book, "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google," discusses the changes taking place in business, society, and culture due to the rapid development of computer technology across the globe.
Carr uses the electrification of America as a historical reference point to show readers how a new technology can revolutionize every aspect of a society - from factory workers' wages and socioeconomic classes to family cohesion and the so Author Nicholas Carr's insightful and easily accessible book, "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google," discusses the changes taking place in business, society, and culture due to the rapid development of computer technology across the globe.
Carr uses the electrification of America as a historical reference point to show readers how a new technology can revolutionize every aspect of a society - from factory workers' wages and socioeconomic classes to family cohesion and the social aspects of housework. Carr than applies the lessons learned during the electrification transformation to the computer revolution and, in particular, the Internet. Issues such as energy, privacy, the personalization of search engines, terrorism, and the possibility of Artificial Intelligence created by the information gleaned from our search keywords, keystrokes, and purchases are all discussed in this compact text.
At just over pages, the author gives a concise exploration of many of the changes happening to society because of the "World Wide Computer. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the impact the Internet and the information age will have on our way of life.
I love Nicholas Carr's writing. He has a very lively style, and he goes just deep enough into the technology that the lay reader can understand it, but not so deep that a non-expert feels overwhelmed. In this book, he makes an analogy between how electricity became a utility and how computing power is becoming a utility. I honestly hadn't known that, in the early days of electricity, the generating plant had to be very close to where the electricity was needed, because the problem of long-distan I love Nicholas Carr's writing.
I honestly hadn't known that, in the early days of electricity, the generating plant had to be very close to where the electricity was needed, because the problem of long-distance transmission hadn't been solved. Similar problems with data transmission have recently been solved, and he makes it sound inevitable that everything's going to the cloud.
Then he makes you really depressed because everything's going to the cloud. He talks about how centralizing the storage, analysis and presentation of data gives a lot more power to governments and big corporations.
Dec 31, Tennyson C. Robin rated it really liked it Shelves: nonfiction-read. In-depth knowledge necessary in this day and age for your edification. So glad I persevered to the end: chapter 8 was so illuminating both culturally and politically. Ended perfectly with the epilogue. Excuse my cynicism, read and you'll see ; In-depth knowledge necessary in this day and age for your edification.
Excuse my cynicism, read and you'll see ; View 2 comments. A facile book, a summary rather than a treatise of Internet-culture thinking. Carr predicts something possibly either apocalyptic or utopian, but doesn't offer analysis or insight or a unique conclusion.
Excellent arguments in favour of cloud computing. Comparing the history of electrification and computing shows the inevitability of computing as utility in the future. Part 1 of 3: First, an aside: Having first encountered the author's writing in my first philosophy seminar, I've considered Nicholas Carr a respectable, even admirable, critic of the sweeping effects that computing and IT have had on society.
In my fourth year in college, I read Carr's work again in my last philosophy seminar, and I was able to discuss his work with him in person when he came to our class. The class even got to have dinner with him at our professor's house. All that is to say, I Part 1 of 3: First, an aside: Having first encountered the author's writing in my first philosophy seminar, I've considered Nicholas Carr a respectable, even admirable, critic of the sweeping effects that computing and IT have had on society.
All that is to say, I may be biased, but I think the author is definitely someone whose argument should carefully and deeply be considered.
In this updated version of what was likely the first in a three-book deal, Nicholas Carr sets the groundwork for what will be the through line argument of the two books that follow, "The Shallows" and "The Glass Cage.
Technological revolutions have widespread, and often unanticipated, societal and behavioral effects. Since the beginning of utility-scale electricity, the past one hundred years have been a whirlwind of highly customary, even completely global, lifestyle changes largely based around the availability of electricity. Carr argues and illustrates in this book that a comparable trend has taken place in computing, and the next three generations years from now will see comparable life-altering effects.
In our case, the unique challenge is that the general purposes of a worldwide information technology network the Internet plus all the personal and private computer networks are above and beyond those of supplying electricity worldwide. We've seen the differences with the nearly complete lack of digital rights or privacy, the spread of disinformation, distributed virus attacks and hacks into sensitive systems, and much more.
There are truly amazing benefits to using computing for several different purposes, including freedom of expression and organizing. But there is an enduring myth that goes back to the Internet's early democratic, even anarchic, beginnings. Carr concedes that, yes, global computer networks enable users to become their own publishers, and with this comes extraordinary opportunities of freedom of self-expression. That has been the theory of the libertarian ethos that drove the early Internet years ago.
But Carr argues that the application of the Internet and global computer networks has been one of control: the billions of daily users controlled by the few biggest technology companies. Through their services, these companies interface with us almost every waking moment of our lives, and it is their goal to encroach even further. Many of us welcome them and their services, and in fact could not imagine our lives without them. The technology itself, and the inevitability of technological revolutions in general, is practically neutral.
It is the application of the tools--for the exercise of freedom or the enforcement of control--that decides their moral value. In this book, Carr gives the history of electricity, computing, and cloud services. He then begins to illustrate how these changes in our daily lives are changing our behavior.
The argument is compelling, the anecdotes are vivid and telling of the anticipated changes that, when written in , were becoming true by , and have since continued to bear fruit. With characteristic insight and top-notch rhetorical persuasion, Nicholas Carr's "The Big Switch" is a provocative harbinger of the next phase in the global IT revolution, and a guide to our present and future digital world. Dec 02, Patrik Hallberg rated it really liked it.
A great read that compares the electrical grid to cloud computing and just like electricity became a general-purpose technology and commodity cloud computing is becoming one claims author Nicholas Carr. The first part of the book is probably the best and with the most refreshing new ideas. I had never thought of electricity and cloud computing as similar but after reading this book I completely agree.
It was fascinating to learn more about the history of electricity and how it moved from like ma A great read that compares the electrical grid to cloud computing and just like electricity became a general-purpose technology and commodity cloud computing is becoming one claims author Nicholas Carr. It was fascinating to learn more about the history of electricity and how it moved from like mainframe computing Direct current into cloud computing by the invention of AC Alternate current and the electrical grid.
The second part is about living in the cloud and contains ideas about AI, how man and machine will blend together and how the web was created by government and then became a voice for freedom and now the control is coming back. The internet knows more about us than we know about ourselves. The web is becoming our memory. Jun 02, Leonidas rated it really liked it. Nicholas teaches us about the social and economic driving forces brought about through introducing electricity. At first, manufacturers relied on their own electrical production using hydro, coal, or other measures.
The evolutionary process was to develop ever-larger, and stronger production facilities, for each individual manufacturer. Edison, and his colleagues had a monopoly on this forefront, emphasizing direct current, despite its limited distance in delivery.
With the discovery and implementation of alternative current, Nikola Tesla was able to revolutionize the ease of providing everyone with electricity. With alternative current, we see the arrival of large power generating stations, and with that cheap readily available electricity, available to both residential, and commercial uses. The rapid development of electricity generation, and distribution allowed westernized nations to progress very quickly, technologically, socially, and commercially.
The computing revolution is heavily influenced by the rapid, exponential production of information, and the perpetual need for information processing. From processing large swaths of government census data, to calculating scientific, and business calculations. Business development is an incredible driving force, for example, when various airlines implemented large computers to increase ticket processing, thus reducing costs for travelers, and increasing revenues for the companies.
Financial institutions implement large risk-management portfolios for their various investments, while manufacturers require better, faster, stronger processes, all through calculations. Thanks to business investing into computation, the costs quickly decreased, and we are introduced into personal computing, ie.
Apple and Microsoft. Personal computing allowed individuals to develop their own software, and take control away from corporate monopolies on computing innovation.
But while, personal computing was influential in giving power to consumers, it was the internet that allowed consumers to become producers. As is widely known, CERN developed the internet, initially for military use, but the internet eventually became a consumer product. Thanks to the development of internet browsers, websites were invented, and thus the rapid surge in the sharing of information, knowledge, opinions, and everything humanly in between.
The algorithm allows search engines to know what a website is about, based on the links pointing to it. Another important revolution involves computing as a utility.
We are no longer bound to purchasing expensive, physical hardware. Instead, we can upload our information into the cloud internet , and have it stay there perpetually, albeit, perhaps forever.
This freedom from hardware, allows us produce information, from anywhere on the planet, at any time, and is available to absolutely anyone. This infrastructure, freedom, and ability is now, always there, just as electricity has become.
As electricity has become a utility, so has the internet, and search engines such as Google. We expect it to be there, it is an invisible force that drives our motivations, expectations, and experiences. Ultimately, Nicholas Carr expands on a revolutionary idea where humans will be completely plugged into this utility, and ironically, we become part of it as perpetual producers. Read for history, economic, technological, and social value. May 22, Jason rated it really liked it. The former editor of the Harvard Business Review, Nicholas Carr uses the story of electricity as a backdrop for considering the evolution and future of our digitally connected economy and society "living in the cloud".
He makes the case that the adoption of new technology is not driven principally by the technology itself, but rather by the economics that the technology enables. As centralized, general purpose technologies, both electricity and the internet have reshaped business and culture i The former editor of the Harvard Business Review, Nicholas Carr uses the story of electricity as a backdrop for considering the evolution and future of our digitally connected economy and society "living in the cloud".
As centralized, general purpose technologies, both electricity and the internet have reshaped business and culture in profound ways.
The most interesting chapters at least to me of the book relate to the impacts of electrification, perhaps because they largely go unacknowledged in the modern age: the rise of the middle class now threatened by the economics of the digital age , the expansion of public education, the flowering of mass culture similarly threatened by "the great unbundling" of entertainment and media , the movement of population to the suburbs, and the shift from an industrial to a service economy.
Carr tells the story of electrification through the contributions of the great inventors: Thomas Edison electricity systems , Samuel Insull centralized electricity grid , Charles Parson improved steam turbine , Nikola Tesla alternating current , and Herman Hollerith punch card tabulator. The more familiar stories of Gates and Grove are also recounted in the second half of the book. In the most provocative chapter "iGod," towards the end of the book , he ponders the potential to integrate computer networks with human brains as the co-founders of Google have sanguinely suggested.
It occurs to me that I'm contributing to the "spider's web" as I type. Carr is cautionary in the final pages: "The World Wide Computer and those who program it have little interest in our exhibiting The most revolutionary consequence of the expansion of the Internet's power, scope, and usefulness may not be that computers will start to think like us but that we will come to think like computers. Computing will soon become a utility like electricity.
Unlike electricity though the applications of it can also be viewed as a service. This is important because people can leverage their ideas even more now. A single man now has access to huge resources that he can purchase on a usage basis instead of having to front large capital investments. Costs of starting a company continue to plummet. The years of being in the red waiting for enough sales or users to start to get an ROI are gone.
Just mo Computing will soon become a utility like electricity. Just months of setting up a service and slowly paying more for increasing use. Another important point was the fact that a company used to have to buy more computing power than their projected peak use. Now they can buy only what they use from these new utility companies. Economies of scale. At the early age of computerization era we had software and hardware installed on our machines to carry out different task.
As time passed, computerization has been changed, and once it will change to that point that we will have all data stored to one central location, just like the change happened hundred years ago when Burdens wheel was replaced by electric current as a source of power. Carr introduces two examples of centralizing information, and those are: Google the search engine and storage of data is located not on our computers, but on the main Google server and Napster as the main cause for the idea of centralizing and wiring computers.
Thomas Edison, the greatest inventor at his time, has been introduced in this chapter as the person who came to idea to produce power in a wider range. After being able to produce energy for manufacturers by building plant next to the factory, he wanted to see how he could replace gaslight with electric bulb. His goal was to produce system that would provide electrical lighting cheaper than gaslight and still to make profit from it. After a while system has been built and the houses in the NYC for the first time in history have been illuminated.
After the invention of the electric bulb, and direct current, Edison was focused on providing wires, power engines, and other necessities to manufacturers, which was followed by establishing his companies The Edison Lamp work produced light bulbs, The Edison Machine Works manufactured Dynamos, and The Electric Tube Company supplied the wiring. His Clerk, Samuel Insull, was more business than technology oriented person, who at the beginning was following Edisons idea, but after he had gained experience working with Edison he was in disagreement about the future use of electricity with Edison.
He had seen electricity as source of energy that everyone would use in different fields, but not only in manufacturing fields. He saw utility as general purpose for technology, used by many businesses and homeowners to run all kind of machines and appliances. However, Insull knew that to be able to make electric power as utility and general purpose to technology he needed to figure out how to serve different business from one central location.
Invention of alternating current helped him to make it possible. Once Insull had technology to establish his goal, his biggest challenge was how to convince people to use energy from central plant, but not their own energy produced at theirs plants.
In utilities share of total US electricity production reached 40 percent. Only big corporation that found difficult to switch to central plant did not switch to. And as author said, thanks to Insull, the age of the private power plant was over. The utility has triumphed. In this chapter Carr sees computerization in the same way he sees energy transformation from Burden to alternating current.
He gives a history of computing and information technology, and each phase he relates to the phase of energy evolution. After first computer UNIVAC was invented and placed in production for business, many experts were skeptical about his profitability and usage.
Many experts at that time predicted the future of computerization not bright, but then Presper Eckert and John Mauchly from University of Pennsylvania saw the electronic computing differently. They thought if UNIVAC can do calculations and save data in its own memory, than it could perform broader task than only basic calculations.
Not long after main computer manufacturers started to produce their own mainframe computers that were used by many companies in US at the time. Era of the computer as a utility started in when American Airlines produced a mainframe computer for printing and managing airplane tickets.
According to Carr this was a break point of economy that started to be more service than manufacturing oriented, and era were investment shifted away from industrial machinery and into information technology.
Not long after mainframes computers were replaced with better technology that was invented at the time transistors. However, transistors proved to be transitional phase from mainframes computing to microprocessor computing. Not many believed that microprocessor computing will led us to new technological age, but Bill Gates did. He did not believe many experts that mainframes computing would be too powerful to be implemented in personal computing.
Thanks to Bill gates the PC democratized computing. It turned corporate data centers into a universal business tool.
The big mainframes computers were modified and transformed into different data centers, such as servers that are providing services to its corporations and customers. The disadvantage of PC computing was the standards of computing. Everyone could produce hardware and software with no criteria and standards to be followed. So, companies started to lose many on buying new software, which in most cases provided other software to be installed or hardware to make the software operational.
Introduction of client-server computing helped to lower the cost to some degree, but to push up client-server computing other type technology was needed. The problem with client-server computing was the low bandwidth transfer.
Computer technology advanced dramatically, while on the other hand communication technology was tapping in a place. Invention of super fast optic-fiber cables enable client server computing to serve its customers from one location as fast and powerful as alternating current enabled to Insulls ideas to become reality. The PC era is giving way to new era: the utility age. Carr started this chapter with the note that Bill Gates sent to his managers.
In the note was that Microsoft is switching to new era of computing and will focus more on Internet Software Service. While Microsofts managers were reading the note couple miles away from the Microsoft headquarter and Bill gates office in Washington, company called Design LLC bought couple acres in Dalles Oregon and started building a vast data centers called Project The data centers are of a size of two football fields, windowless and on top of the building are installed huge ventilators to cool of the hardware inside the centers.
With those two data centers, Google has virtually covered the whole internet itself, which is used by Googles search engine. Company that went to the same business as Google, to provide internet services is Amazon. However, Amazon instead of parallel computing is using virtualization. The best way to explain virtualization and compare it to the client server computing is to imagine five floor building. In case of client server computing, only one person was able to live in the building.
With virtualization, that building can be used by many tenants and each of them would be able to have a room, apartment or space for itself. Virtualization is also called multi-tenancy. Today many companies are switching to utility computing because they do not want to be left in a dust.
However, Microsoft has not turned of the production of PC software, and it is on us to see if Microsoft is able to start into new era of computing with remaining of most of its production in PC era.
As author stated, Bill gates announced retirement in and said that his position will be taken over by Ozzie and other executives. According to author, when Bill gates steps down the managerial role and go to retirement the PC age will come to an end. The future of computing belongs to the new utilitarian. This chapter was mainly about the photosynthesis in electricity world. The author explained the way American middle class got to the level as it is today, and also how women changed their way of managing housework but still did not decrease the amount of time spent on housekeeping.
The author noted that in the era of electrification, they needed to make sure that vast majority of people are able to afford electricity in their homes, and appliances that are used on electricity in a way to make electricity necessity in every household, office and factory. Labor wages have increased despite the automated machines have been used for production.
The author explained this as circulation of money, the money they given to their employees were coming back to the electrical companies from customers in which employees of their company are included.
The author at the end is stating that our society was forged we were forged by Insulls dynamo. The author in this chapter has covered the history of internet and gave introduction of World Wide Computer. He sees World Wide Computer as something in the cloud. All software that we have been used so war in PC era, previously we had to install on our computers, but with the utility era we started to use software that is not even on our computer.
It is somewhere else and we do not even know where it is because we do not care. The author talks about internet that was primarily developed to be the mind world, but it came out as business world. The author gives examples how ordinary people use World Wide Computer without even knowing that they have been using it. At the end of chapter author talks how virtual communities have become our reality, and people that have joined their virtual communities actually feel to belong to those communities as much as they belong to real life community.
He argues that eventually in sooner future we will have to distinguish our real life fro m virtual life. The main issue author is concerned with and he definitely worries about is the difference of household income for middle class and overall in US. He argues that after Second World War the richest American by s had 21 time middle class annual income. That number increased to around times by and finally to its day, it reaches almost times average middle class income. What have influence the big change is according to the author the World Wide Computer.
The author through out the chapter used YouTube as example of how individual became available to earn millions of dollars just as big companies used to do it in the past.
Author also argues how middle class labor is not any more needed in computerize world in the extent as it was needed before, and the introduction of free labor made individuals to be more progressive and let them start earning a big bucks.
He finished a Chapter with a YouTube example saying that YouTube is available to everyone for free, but only few reap the rewards. The issues author talked in this chapter are mostly concern with the removing necessary information that are given by search engines, and the way Google handles is to satisfy its customers.
The author sees Google as the company who is trying to satisfy its customers in a way that all searches made by user on Google will gather together, so next time user come in the data that he might be looking for, will be narrowed.
Author also mentioned the way Google, Amazon, and all service provided by the cloud are actually changing American culture as well as mentioned before American economy. Companies that had the biggest impact by utility revolution were companies in the newspapers business. Fighting the Net is the chapter in which author talks about security and Internet vulnerability. Chapter starts with the information about the war in Iraq and how terrorists used Google earth map to locate its targets.
The author argues that countries with low military technology can easily and accurately using Google earth map locate its targets and harm others.
0コメント