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Tue 29 Mar, 2005 10:30 am
FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop--From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication
by Neil Gershenfeld
(Due to be released April 12, 2005)
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Neil Gershenfeld is the director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. He is the author of numerous technical publications, patents, and books including When Things Start to Think. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Economist, CNN, PBS and other media.
Product Description:
What if you could someday put the manufacturing power of an automobile plant on your desktop? It may sound far-fetched-but then, thirty years ago, the notion of "personal computers" in every home sounded like science fiction.
According to Neil Gershenfeld, the renowned MIT scientist and inventor, the next big thing is personal fabrication -the ability to design and produce your own products, in your own home, with a machine that combines consumer electronics with industrial tools. Personal fabricators (PF's) are about to revolutionize the world just as personal computers did a generation ago. PF's will bring the programmability of the digital world to the rest of the world, by being able to make almost anything-including new personal fabricators.
In FAB, Gershenfeld describes how personal fabrication is possible today, and how it is meeting local needs with locally developed solutions. He and his colleagues have created "fab labs" around the world, which, in his words, can be interpreted to mean "a lab for fabrication, or simply a fabulous laboratory." Using the machines in one of these labs, children in inner-city Boston have made saleable jewelry from scrap material. Villagers in India used their lab to develop devices for monitoring food safety and agricultural engine efficiency. Herders in the Lyngen Alps of northern Norway are developing wireless networks and animal tags so that their data can be as nomadic as their animals. And students at MIT have made everything from a defensive dress that protects its wearer's personal space to an alarm clock that must be wrestled into silence.
These experiments are the vanguard of a new science and a new era-an era of "post-digital literacy" in which we will be as familiar with digital fabrication as we are with the of information processing. In this groundbreaking book, the scientist pioneering the revolution in personal fabrication reveals exactly what is being done, and how. The technology of FAB will allow people to create the objects they desire, and the kind of world they want to live in.
"The director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms takes a captivating look at the future of invention, positing a world in which the home fabrication system is as ubiquitous as the home computer....Accessible, inspiring and wonderfully human: sure to spark the imagination." (Kirkus)
When Things Start to Think
When Things Start to Think
by Neil Gershenfeld
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
A computer in your shoe? Maybe so. Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT's Media Lab, joins the ranks of techno-prognosticators with When Things Start to Think, and his focus is on how the future of computing will fit into our physical realities. This sensorial focus allows Gershenfeld to explore such science fictional ideas as wearable computers, nanotech circuitry implants, as well as such concerns as emotions, money, and civil rights in the new age of artificial intelligence. Gershenfeld provides a historical overview of the development of computers and extrapolates a world in which we will be forced to deal with things that think all the time. This can't help but reshape our society in ways we must try to imagine. You may be surprised at how far along this road we are--Gershenfeld is in exactly the right place to tell this story, and it's a whole lot of fun (and a little scary) to ride this wave with him. --Adam Fisher --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description:
This is a book for people who want to know what the future is going to look like and for people who want to know how to create the future. Gershenfeld offers a glimpse at the brave new post-computerized world, where microchips work for us instead of against us. He argues that we waste the potential of the microchip when we confine it to a box on our desk: the real electronic revolution will come when computers have all but disappeared into the walls around us. Imagine a digital book that looks like a traditional book printed on paper and is pleasant to read in bed but has all the mutability of a screen display. How about a personal fabricator that can organize digitized atoms into anything you want, or a musical keyboard that can be woven into a denim jacket? Gershenfeld tells the story of his Things that Think group at MIT's Media Lab, the group of innovative scientists and researchers dedicated to integrating digital technology into the fabric of our lives.
It's science fiction film time. As wonderful as the possibilities sound I can't help but wonder if machines that can replicate or improve themselves can't be designed for military purposes either by other people or by themselves. Could it be Klaatu Barada Nikto revisited? Films such as Colossus - The Forbin Project or 2001:A space odyssey where the computers decided they'd better take over since those foolish humans didn't know what they're doing might be proved true. Was the statement from Jurassic Park prophetic when the observation by the chaos theory author stated that scientists only consider could they do it, not should they do it.
Bob
bobsmythhawk wrote:It's science fiction film time. As wonderful as the possibilities sound I can't help but wonder if machines that can replicate or improve themselves can't be designed for military purposes either by other people or by themselves. Could it be Klaatu Barada Nikto revisited? Films such as Colossus - The Forbin Project or 2001:A space odyssey where the computers decided they'd better take over since those foolish humans didn't know what they're doing might be proved true. Was the statement from Jurassic Park prophetic when the observation by the chaos theory author stated that scientists only consider could they do it, not should they do it.
Bob, the biggest risk I fear would be how easy it would be for terrorists to use the technology, which is relatively inexpensive and easy to use.
Hence, I suspect the military will step in to classify it.
BBB
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