'The father of Virtual Reality ... a high-tech genius' (Sunday Times) explains why virtual reality presents the ultimate test for humanity
Jaron Lanier is a philosopher and computer scientist who has spent his career pushing the transformative power of modern technology to its limits. From coining the term 'Virtual Reality' and creating the world's first immersive avatars to developing cutting-edge medical imaging and surgical techniques, Lanier is one of the premier designers and engineers at work today. He is also one of the most celebrated technology writers in the world, whose previous book Who Owns the Future? was named the most important book of 2013 by Joe Nocera in The New York Times and whose first book You Are Not a Gadget was named one of the ten best books of 2010 by Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time, one of the 100 top public intellectuals by Foreign Policy, and one of the top 50 World Thinkers by Prospect. He is currently Interdisciplinary Scientist at Microsoft Research and a highly accomplished musician with one of the largest and most varied collections of rare instruments in the world, all of which he plays.
A terrific book by a supremely intelligent guy ... vivid and
absolutely extraordinary
*Evening Standard*
Essential reading, not just for VR-watchers but for anyone
interested in how society came to be how it is, and what it might
yet become
*Economist*
A studied and nuanced interrogation of VR’s potential, as well as a
gentle critique of what he sees as a failure of imagination when it
comes to the medium’s current proponents ... interspersing the
general ideas, principles and promise of VR with intimate
autobiography ... aided by the fact that Lanier's childhood was
preposterously unusual … combin[ing] tragedy, whimsy and peril in
ways that might seem far-fetched for even a David Lynch film
*Observer*
Lanier is a visionary who sees a world suffused with the
possibility of good ... As with William Blake, you might first be
repelled by the strangeness of it all, the sense of teetering on
the edge of madness, but, on looking closer, you realise you are in
the presence of a gifted truth-teller
*Sunday Times*
Fascinating as life itself … a modern history of the industry that
changed the world
*The Times*
Lanier beautifully describes his fascination with VR as the
technology that 'highlights the existence of your subjective
experience. It proves you are real'
*Nature*
A tech futurist, researcher and writer, he is well placed to act as
guide to the world described in Dawn of the New Everything… A lot
of the charm of this highly personal account turns on his
description of a childhood that reads like something out of a
magical realist novel
*Financial Times*
A deeply human, highly personal and beautifully told story
*Dave Eggers*
It's entirely unexpected and disarming to read about these
fascinating ideas about technology and the future from such a
personal, unabashedly subjective point of view. Lanier has
thoroughly convinced me that Virtual Reality is the beginning of an
enormous paradigm shift in the way humans relate and
communicate
*Joseph Gordon-Levitt*
Fascinating
*i*
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