The big switch : rewiring the world, from Edison to Google / Nicholas Carr.

By:

Carr, Nicholas G, 1959-

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: New York ; London : W. W. Norton, 2008.Edition: 1st edDescription: vii, 278 pages 25 cmISBN:

9780393062281 (hbk.)
9780393062281 (hbk.)

Other title:

Rewiring the world, from Edison to Google

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

303.4834 CAR

Contents:

Part I.One machine 1.The burden's wheel 2.The inventor and his clerk 3.Digital millwork 4.Goodbye, Mr. Gates 5.The white city Part 2.Living in the cloud 6.World wide computer 7.From the many to the few 8.The great unbundling 9.Fighting the net 10.A spider's web 11.iGod

Summary: While it may seem that we're in the midst of an unprecedented technological transition, Carr posits that the direction of the digital revolution has a strong historical corollary: electrification. Carr argues that computing, no longer personal, is going the way of a power utility. Manufacturers used to provide their own power (i.e., windmills and waterwheels) until they plugged into the electric grid a hundred years ago. According to Carr, we're in the midst of a similar transition in computing, moving from our own private hard drives to the computer as access portal. Soon all companies and individuals will outsource their computing systems, from programming to data storage, to companies with big hard drives in out-of-the-way places. Carr's analysis of the recent past is clear and insightful as he examines common computing tools that are embedded in the Internet instead of stored on a hard drive, including Google and YouTube. The social and economic consequences of this transition into the utility age fall somewhere between uncertain and grim, Carr argues. Wealth will be further consolidated into the hands of a few, and specific industries, publishing in particular, will perish at the hands of crowdsourcing and the unbundling of content. However, Carr eschews an entirely dystopian vision for the future, hypothesizing without prognosticating

Holdings ( 1 )
Title notes ( 4 )

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Long Loan	TUS: Midlands, Main Library Athlone General Lending	303.4834 CAR (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		225319

Formerly CIP. Uk

Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-260) and index.

While it may seem that we're in the midst of an unprecedented technological transition, Carr posits that the direction of the digital revolution has a strong historical corollary: electrification. Carr argues that computing, no longer personal, is going the way of a power utility. Manufacturers used to provide their own power (i.e., windmills and waterwheels) until they plugged into the electric grid a hundred years ago. According to Carr, we're in the midst of a similar transition in computing, moving from our own private hard drives to the computer as access portal. Soon all companies and individuals will outsource their computing systems, from programming to data storage, to companies with big hard drives in out-of-the-way places. Carr's analysis of the recent past is clear and insightful as he examines common computing tools that are embedded in the Internet instead of stored on a hard drive, including Google and YouTube. The social and economic consequences of this transition into the utility age fall somewhere between uncertain and grim, Carr argues. Wealth will be further consolidated into the hands of a few, and specific industries, publishing in particular, will perish at the hands of crowdsourcing and the unbundling of content. However, Carr eschews an entirely dystopian vision for the future, hypothesizing without prognosticating