Mark Pesce

The boundaries between physical and virtual are increasingly blurred, which is a phenomenon open to multiple interpretations. Pesce chooses to concentrate on play and toys, based on the toy designs made possible by technological innovations but drawing out more general threads towards the intersection of artificial intelligence and ubiquitous computing.

Would have been better to read this closer to when it was published back in 2000. The author talks extensively about furbies, lego mindstorms, the introduction of the world wide web and virtual reality. If you want history and context for these, then you'll like the book.

The author aluded to how this technology is impacting our kids and their world view (ie, why should they memorize something when the web is available to look it up at any time from their cell phones). I would have enjoyed show more him discussing this more, but it remained a footnote in what was otherwise a drawn out history lesson on a few select technologies. Those technologies did fill us with awe at one time, but today are a commonplace, and so the book has lost much of the punch it may have had when it was first published. show less

Out of date now, and things you mostly already probably know if you were around in the late 80's into the 90's VR scene

Out of date now, and things you mostly already probably know if you were around in the late 80's into the 90's VR scene