Always On or Intelligent Universe

Always On

Author: Naomi Baron

In Always On, Naomi S. Baron reveals that online and mobile technologies--including instant messaging, cell phones, multitasking, Facebook, blogs, and wikis--are profoundly influencing how we read and write, speak and listen, but not in the ways we might suppose.
Baron draws on a decade of research to provide an eye-opening look at language in an online and mobile world. She reveals for instance that email, IM, and text messaging have had surprisingly little impact on student writing. Electronic media has magnified the laid-back "whatever" attitude toward formal writing that young people everywhere have embraced, but it is not a cause of it. A more troubling trend, according to Baron, is the myriad ways in which we block incoming IMs, camouflage ourselves on Facebook, and use ring tones or caller ID to screen incoming calls on our mobile phones. Our ability to decide who to talk to, she argues, is likely to be among the most lasting influences that information technology has upon the ways we communicate with one another. Moreover, as more and more people are "always on" one technology or another--whether communicating, working, or just surfing the web or playing games--we have to ask what kind of people do we become, as individuals and as family members or friends, if the relationships we form must increasingly compete for our attention with digital media?
Our 300-year-old written culture is on the verge of redefinition, Baron notes. It's up to us to determine how and when we use language technologies, and to weigh the personal and social benefits--and costs--of being "always on." This engaging and lucidly-crafted book gives us the tools for taking on these challenges.

Table of Contents:

Preface     ix
Email to Your Brain: Language in an Online and Mobile World     3
Language Online: The Basics     11
Controlling the Volume: Everyone a Language Czar     31
Are Instant Messages Speech?: The World of IM     45
My Best Day: Managing "Buddies" and "Friends"     71
Having Your Say: Blogs and Beyond     99
Going Mobile: Cell Phones in Context     127
"Whatever": Is the Internet Destroying Language?     161
Gresham's Ghost: Challenges to Written Culture     183
The People We Become: The Cost of Being Always On     213
Notes     237
References     253
Index     275

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Intelligent Universe: AI, ET, and the Emerging Mind of the Cosmos

Author: James Gardner

What is the ultimate destiny of our universe? That is the striking question addressed by James Gardner in The Intelligent Universe.

Traditionally, scientists (and Robert Frost) have offered two bleak answers to this profound issue: fire or ice.

The cosmos might end in fire-a cataclysmic Big Crunch in which galaxies, planets, and life forms are consumed in a raging inferno as the universe contracts in a kind of Big Bang in reverse.

Or the universe might end in ice-a ceaseless expansion of the fabric of space-time in which matter and energy are eternally diluted and cooled; stars wither and die, , and the cosmos simply fades into quiet and endless oblivion.

In The Intelligent Universe, James Gardner envisions a third dramatic alternative-a final state of the cosmos in which a highly evolved form of group intelligence engineers a cosmic renewal, the birth of a new universe.

Gardner's vision is that life and intelligence are at the very heart of the elegant machinery of the universe. It is a viewpoint that has won outspoken praise from an array of leading scientists, including Sir Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, and Templeton Prize winner Paul Davies.

The Intelligent Universe is both a look into the past and a road map for the future of the universe. It explores the mysteries of the universe and of consciousness, and provides a frank and fascinating look at where our minds are taking us.