Siva Vaidhyanathan: The Googlization of Everything: And Why We Should Worry (2011)
Filed under book | Tags: · advertising, china, facebook, google, internet, search, surveillance, technology, youtube
In the beginning, the World Wide Web was exciting and open to the point of anarchy, a vast and intimidating repository of unindexed confusion. Into this creative chaos came Google with its dazzling mission—“To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible”—and its much-quoted motto, “Don’t be Evil.” In this provocative book, Siva Vaidhyanathan examines the ways we have used and embraced Google—and the growing resistance to its expansion across the globe. He exposes the dark side of our Google fantasies, raising red flags about issues of intellectual property and the much-touted Google Book Search. He assesses Google’s global impact, particularly in China, and explains the insidious effect of Googlization on the way we think. Finally, Vaidhyanathan proposes the construction of an Internet ecosystem designed to benefit the whole world and keep one brilliant and powerful company from falling into the “evil” it pledged to avoid.
Publisher University of California Press, 2011
ISBN 0520258827, 9780520258822
265 pages
review (Evgeny Morozov, The New Republic)
review (Adam Thierer, The Technology Liberation Front)
review (Jack Shafer, San Francisco Chronicle)
Steven Levy: In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives (2011)
Filed under book | Tags: · advertising, code, facebook, google, internet, microsoft, search, software, youtube
Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes readers inside Google headquarters—the Googleplex—to show how Google works.
While they were still students at Stanford, Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin revolutionized Internet search. They followed this brilliant innovation with another, as two of Google’s earliest employees found a way to do what no one else had: make billions of dollars from Internet advertising. With this cash cow (until Google’s IPO nobody other than Google management had any idea how lucrative the company’s ad business was), Google was able to expand dramatically and take on other transformative projects: more efficient data centers, open-source cell phones, free Internet video (YouTube), cloud computing, digitizing books, and much more.
The key to Google’s success in all these businesses, Levy reveals, is its engineering mind-set and adoption of such Internet values as speed, openness, experimentation, and risk taking. After its unapologetically elitist approach to hiring, Google pampers its engineers—free food and dry cleaning, on-site doctors and masseuses—and gives them all the resources they need to succeed. Even today, with a workforce of more than 23,000, Larry Page signs off on every hire.
But has Google lost its innovative edge? It stumbled badly in China—Levy discloses what went wrong and how Brin disagreed with his peers on the China strategy—and now with its newest initiative, social networking, Google is chasing a successful competitor for the first time. Some employees are leaving the company for smaller, nimbler start-ups. Can the company that famously decided not to be evil still compete?
Publisher Simon and Schuster, 2011
ISBN 1416596585, 9781416596585
352 pages
video (NPR interview with Laura Sydell)
review (Evgeny Morozov, The New Republic)
review (Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Washington Post)
review (Paul Boutin, The Wall Street Journal)
review (Jack Shafer, San Francisco Chronicle)
PAGE, 1-71 (1969-1985, 2004-2014)
Filed under magazine | Tags: · art history, computer art, computing, history of computing, history of technology, media art, media history, united kingdom
“PAGE is the bulletin of the Computer Arts Society.
The Computer Arts Society was one of the most influential British computer art groups. It was founded in 1968, followed by an inaugural exhibition, Event One, in March 1969 at the RCA. George Mallen, Alan Sutcliffe and Lansdown set up CAS as an offshoot of the British Computer Society, to further the use of computers by artists. CAS flourished through the 1970s and early 80s.
PAGE was initially published from April 1969 until 1985 and was named after the concept of paging (the use of disk memory as a virtual store which had been introduced on the Ferranti Atlas Computer). It featured major British and international computer artists and hosted some fundamental discussions as to the aims and nature of computer art. Its first editor was Gustav Metzger, thereby establishing from the beginning an association with the avant-garde. Metzger was ‘excited’ to discover CAS and ‘people coming together’ as he had ‘felt quite isolated.’ As early as 1961, Metzger had stated that ‘…the artist may collaborate with scientists, engineers.’ As many members were outside of London or overseas, PAGE was an important disseminator of information.”
Publisher Computer Arts Society, London
PDFs (1969-1985 & 2004-2014, updated on 2017-12-2)
PDFs (1969-1985)