The New Digital Age

CHAPTER 1

OUR FUTURE SELVES

five billion more people: The World in 2011: ICT Facts and Figures, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), accessed October 10, 2012, http://www.itu.int/ITUD/ict/facts/2011/material/ICTFactsFigures2011.pdf. The above source shows that as of 2011 35 percent of the world’s population is online. We factored in population increase projections to estimate five billion set to join the virtual world.

Consider the impact of basic mobile phones: This fisherwomen thought experiment came out of a conversation with Rebecca Cohen, and while we put it in the context of the Congo, the example belongs to her.

650 million mobile-phone users in Africa: “Africa’s Mobile Phone Industry ‘Booming,’ ” BBC, November 9, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15659983.

close to 3 billion across Asia: See mobile cellular subscriptions, Asia & Pacific, year 2011, in “Key ICT Indicators for the ITU/BDT Regions (Totals and Penetration Rates),” International Telecommunication Union (ITU), ICT Data and Statistics (IDS), updated November 16, 2011, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/at_glance/KeyTelecom.html.

The majority of these people are using basic-feature phones: Ibid. Compare mobile cellular subscriptions to active mobile broadband subscriptions for 2011.

life expectancy is less than sixty years, or even fifty: “Country Comparison: Life Expectancy at Birth,” CIA, World Fact Book, accessed October 11, 2012, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html#top.

This will even be true: One of the authors spent the summer of 2001 in this remote village, without electricity, running water, or a single cell phone or landline. During a return trip in the fall of 2010, many of the Maasai women had crafted beautiful beaded pouches to store their cell phones in.

China’s expansive “shanzhai” network: Nicholas Schmidle, “Inside the Knockoff-Tennis-Shoe Factory,” New York Times Magazine, August 19, 2010, Global edition, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22fake-t.html?pagewanted=all.

machines can actually “print” physical objects: “The Printed World: Three-Dimensional Printing from Digital Designs Will Transform Manufacturing and Allow More People to Start Making Things,” Economist, February 10, 2011, http://www.economist.com/node/18114221.

a full-sized replica motorcycle: Patrick Collinson, “Hi-Tech Shares Take US for a Walk on the High Side,” Guardian (Manchester), March 16, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/mar/16/hi-tech-shares-us.

“social robots” that can recognize human gestures: Sarah Constantin, “Gesture Recognition, Mind-Reading Machines, and Social Robotics,” H+ Magazine, February 8, 2011, http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/02/08/gesture-recognition-mind-reading-machines-and-social-robotics/.

In 2012, a team at a robotics laboratory in Japan: Helen Thomson, “Robot Avatar Body Controlled by Thought Alone,” New Scientist, July 2012, 19–20.

Consider the twenty-four-year-old Kenyan inventor Anthony Mutua: “Shoe Technology to Charge Cell Phones,” Daily Nation, May 2012, http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Shoe+technology+to+charge+cell+phones++/-/1056/1401998/-/view/printVersion/-/sur34lz/-/index.html.

placed the chip in the sole of a tennis shoe: Ibid.

Mutua’s chip is now set to go into mass production: Ibid.

Khan Academy: In the spirit of full disclosure: Eric Schmidt is on the board of Khan Academy.

replacing lectures with videos watched at home: Clive Thompson, “How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education,” Wired Magazine, August 2011, posted online July 15, 2011, http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/ff_khan/.

In 2012, the MIT Media Lab tested: Nicholas Negroponte, “EmTech Preview: Another Way to Think About Learning,” Technology Review, September 13, 2012, http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429206/emtech-preview-another-way-to-think-about/.

distributing preloaded tablets to primary-age kids: David Talbot, “Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves,” Technology Review, October 29, 2012, http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506466/given-tablets-but-no-teachers-ethiopian-children-teach-themselves/.

one of the lowest rates of literacy in the world: “Field Listing: Literacy,” CIA, World Fact Book, accessed October 11, 2012, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2103.html#af.

in 2012, Nevada became the first state to issue licenses to driverless cars: Chris Gaylord, “Ready for a Self-Driving Car? Check Your Driveway,” Christian Science Monitor, June 25, 2012, http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Tech/2012/0625/Ready-for-a-self-driving-car-Check-your-driveway.

California also affirmed their legality: James Temple, “California Affirms Legality of Driverless Cars,” The Tech Chronicles (blog), San Francisco Chronicle, September 25, 2012, http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2012/09/25/california-legalizes-driverless-cars/; Florida has passed a similar law. See Joann Muller, “With Driverless Cars, Once Again It Is California Leading the Way,” Forbes, September 26, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2012/09/26/with-driverless-cars-once-again-it-is-california-leading-the-way/.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first electronic pill in 2012: Erin Kim, “ ‘Digital Pill’ with Chip Inside Gets FDA Green Light,” CNN Money, August 3, 2012, http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/03/technology/startups/ingestible-sensor-proteus/index.htm; Peter Murray, “No More Skipping Your Medicine—FDA Approves First Digital Pill,” Forbes, August 9, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/singularity/2012/08/09/no-more-skipping-your-medicine-fda-approves-first-digital-pill/.

pill carries a tiny sensor one square millimeter in size: Ibid.

stomach acid activates the circuit: Daniel Cressey, “Say Hello to Intelligent Pills: Digital System Tracks Patients from the Inside Out,” Nature, January 17, 2012, http://www.nature.com/news/say-hello-to-intelligent-pills-1.9823; Randi Martin, “FDA Approves ‘Intelligent’ Pill That Reports Back to Doctors,” WTOP, August 2, 2012, http://www.wtop.com/267/2974694/FDA-approves-intelligent-pill-that-reports-back-to-doctors.

The patch can collect information: Cressey, “Say Hello to Intelligent Pills,” Nature, January 17, 2012, and Martin, “FDA Approves ‘Intelligent’ Pill,” WTOP, August 2, 2012.

track what a person eats: Randi Martin, “FDA Approves ‘Intelligent’ Pill That Reports Back to Doctors,” WTOP, August 2, 2012.

Tissue engineers will be able to grow new organs: Henry Fountain, “One Day, Growing Spare Parts Inside the Body,” New York Times, September 17, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/health/research/using-the-body-to-incubate-replacement-organs.html?pagewanted=all; Henry Fountain, “A First: Organs Tailor-Made with Body’s Own Cells,” New York Times, September 15, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/health/research/scientists-make-progress-in-tailor-made-organs.html?pagewanted=all; Henry Fountain, “Synthetic Windpipe Is Used to Replace Cancerous One,” New York Times, January 12, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/health/research/surgeons-transplant-synthetic-trachea-in-baltimore-man.html.

doctors and disease specialists will have more information: Gina Kolata, “Infant DNA Tests Speed Diagnosis of Rare Diseases,” New York Times, October 3, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/health/new-test-of-babies-dna-speeds-diagnosis.html?_r=1; Gina Kolata, “Genome Detectives Solve a Hospital’s Deadly Outbreak,” New York Times, August 22, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/health/genome-detectives-solve-mystery-of-hospitals-k-pneumoniae-outbreak.html; Gina Kolata, “A New Treatment’s Tantalizing Promise Brings Heartbreaking Ups and Downs,” New York Times, July 8, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/health/new-frontiers-of-cancer-treatment-bring-breathtaking-swings.html.

due to change as the burgeoning field of pharmacogenetics: “One Size Does Not Fit All: The Promise of Pharmacogenomics,” National Center for Biotechnology Information, Science Primer, revised March 31, 2004, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/About/primer/pharm.html.

the “mobile health” revolution: “mHealth in the Developing World,” m+Health, accessed October 23, 2012, http://mplushealth.com/en/SiteRoot/MHme/Overview/mHealth-in-the-Developing-World/.

Mobile phones are now used: Lakshminarayanan Subramanian et al., “SmartTrack,” CATER (Cost-effective Appropriate Technologies for Emerging Region), New York University, accessed October 11, 2012, http://cater.cs.nyu.edu/smarttrack#ref3.

tiny microchip that uses low-radiation: Kevin Spak, “Coming Soon: X-Ray Phones,” Newser, April 20, 2012, http://www.newser.com/story/144464/coming-soon-x-ray-phones.html.

how could a dog eat his cloud storage drive?: A New Yorker cartoon by Tom Cheney in 2012 expressed a similar idea. Its caption read “The Cloud Ate My Homework.” See “Cartoons from the Issue,” New Yorker, October 8, 2012, http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2012/10/08/cartoons_20121001#slide=5.