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The title of this book is a mild pun. People are using smart "mobs" (rhymes with "robes") to become smart "mobs" (rhymes with "robs"), meaning, sophisticated mobile Internet access is allowing people who don't know each other to act in concert. In this timely if at times overenthusiastic survey of wireless communication devices, Rheingold (The Virtual Community) conveys how cell phones, pagers and PDAs are shaping modern culture. He interviewed dozens of people around the world who work and play with these technologies to see how this revolution is manifesting, and his findings are stirring. The concept has caught on among young Japanese, where cliques of teenagers hang out together all day, despite being in different places, by sending and receiving hundreds of iconic text transmissions on their iMode telephones. And demonstrators in Seattle and Manila relied on wireless telephones to coordinate their actions and evade barricades. In major cities, Rheingold says, techno-hipsters can congregate in "WiFi" areas that interact with their wireless devices to let them participate in a virtual social scene. In one amusing example, he tells of upscale prostitutes who can enter their services and prices into their mobile phones, allowing customers to discreetly determine if anyone nearby is selling what they want to buy (a Japanese company, Lovegety, has already adapted this idea to dating). This study of the potential of mobile, always on, fast Internet access nicely serves as a travelogue to the future, showing the possibilities and dangers of communications innovation.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

read an interview with the author at:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2002/tc20021120_2459.htm

As computers make inroads on every aspect of business, will people cease to matter? That's the underlying question of this fascinating examination of the new labor market. In lucid prose, Levy and Murnane-economics professors at MIT and Harvard, respectively, and co-authors of the 1996 bestseller Teaching the New Basic Skills-present their answer, and their expectations regarding how computers will affect future wages and job distributions. They begin by debunking the common perception that computers eliminate jobs; the truth, they say, is that "computers are Janus-faced, helping to create jobs even as they destroy jobs." Supported by trend data-clearly laid out in charts, graphs and extensive footnotes-they argue that every technical advance since the introduction of computers to the workplace "shifts works away from routine tasks and towards tasks requiring expert thinking and complex communication." Levy and Murnane also assert that, while it is easy to point to all the new service economy jobs that involve standing behind fast-food counters, the majority of newly created jobs have put workers behind desks, in control of computers and in front of other humans where they are asked to use cognitive skills that outstrip any computer's capability. But if the replacement of humans by computers isn't a realistic crisis, the authors do point out another looming problem: a possible shortage in properly trained workers. Blue-collar and clerical workers displaced by computers already have a difficult time adjusting to the requirements of the new high-wage jobs, and, if educational curriculums aren't changed to reflect the market's demand for sophisticated thinking and communication, students may graduate without the skills they need either. Readers interested in labor and technology shouldn't be put off by this book's dull cover art. Its contents are anything but boring.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Editor's Note: read an interview with the authors at:
http://www.mbadepot.com/redir.php?ID=4003&db_table=links

Al Gore's infamous claim that he invented the Internet is more widely known than the names of the scientists and engineers who really made it happen. Despite its profound impact on just about everything, the Internet's origins simply aren't common knowledge.

John Naughton sets out to remedy that by giving the largely anonymous "boys in the back room" credit for what they did. He chronicles the work of computer pioneers Vannevar Bush, Norbert Wiener and J.C.R. Licklider. He charts the work of Larry Roberts, Bob Taylor, Paul Baran, and others as they develop the government-sponsored ARPANET, the precursor to today's Internet. He wraps things up with the emergence of the World Wide Web and the battle between Netscape and Microsoft.

Writing about the Internet creates some challenges, and Naughton never fully overcomes them. In the second chapter, he gives a simplistic introduction to computers and the Web. Later, Naughton changes course and wades into fairly complex descriptions of computer languages that could leave neophytes scratching their heads. A bigger flaw is his inability to capture the personalities of the computer pioneers he profiles. Despite the stated goal of bringing these creative thinkers to life, they come off as stiff as that most famous of high-tech "inventors," Al Gore.
[Business 2.0 Annotation]