Jaron Lanier

Read and discuss a variety of books exploring how to create a more civil and engaged community.Join Mary Dumas on the third Wednesday of the month from noon to 1:30. Authors DO NOT attend. Meetings are in the Readings Gallery -- brown bag lunches are encouraged. Anyone interested in exploring their role as an engaged citizen is welcome.

Wed, Jul 16, noon

Who Owns the Future? by Jaron Lanier

This head's up from Jaron Lanier, the father of virtual reality technology, provides a candid look the world we have wrought via the digital systems we've come to rely upon. Join us for a lively discussion about our new digital habits and how they are helping to generate the few and the new financial winners and power brokers, who are defining how to manage the boundaries of privacy and information access.

Location: Street: 1200 11th St City: Bellingham, Province: Washington Postal Code: 98225-7015 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Jaron Lanier

Wednesday, May 15, 7:30 p.m.

Who Owns the Future?

Are you concerned about the middle class? We are!

Jaron Lanier is a computer scientist, musician, and digital media pioneer best known for his work in Virtual Reality research. He received a Lifetime Career Award from the IEEE in 2009 for his contributions to the field. Time Magazine named him as one of the "Time 100" in 2010. A profile in Wired Magazine described him as "the first technology figure to cross over to pop-culture stardom." He has worked both in an academic context, particularly in connection with Internet2, and in the private sector, helping to create companies that were eventually acquired by Oracle, Adobe, and Google.

Lanier received an honorary PhD from NJIT in 2006. He is the bestselling author of You Are Not a Gadget and also writes orchestral music and plays a large number of rare acoustic musical instruments. He is currently at work with colleagues at Microsoft on intriguing unannounced projects. Lanier was profiled in the January issue of Smithsonian Magazine: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/What-Turned-Jaron-Lanier-Agai...

Who Owns the Future? is a visionary reckoning with the effects network technologies have had on our economy. Lanier asserts that the rise of digital networks led our economy into recession and decimated the middle class. Now, as technology flattens more and more industries—from media to medicine to manufacturing—we are facing even greater challenges to employment and personal wealth. But there is an alternative to allowing technology to own our future. In this book, Lanier charts the path toward a new information economy that will stabilize the middle class and allow it to grow. It is time for ordinary people to be rewarded for what they do and share on the web.

Tickets are available now at Brown Paper Tickets Online or by calling 800-838-3006

Location: Street: 1010 El Camino Real City: Menlo Park, Province: California Postal Code: 94025-4349 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Jaron Lanier discusses You are not a gadget : a manifesto.; Lee Smolin discusses The Life of the Cosmos.

Join the conversation between two of the world’s most respected scientific minds on the philosophy of consciousness and information. A pioneer in virtual reality, a Silicon Valley visionary since the 1980s, and one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2010, Jaron Lanier is the author of You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto . His provocative and cautionary book examines how the Internet elevates the “wisdom” of mobs and computer algorithms over the intelligence and judgment of individuals. A founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Lee Smolin is well known for his contributions to our understanding of quantum gravity, elementary particle physics, quantum mechanics and theoretical biology. His three books, Life of the Cosmos, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity and The Trouble with Physics, all explore the philosophical issues raised by contemporary physics. Tickets $15 / $10 reduced. Free for festival members. (thebookpile)… (more)