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A little bit of every sort of book in here.
This is a strange book. Most likely that is because Jaron Lanier has the money to do whatever the hell wants, and that's exactly what he does.The father of virtual reality writes an autobiography. That's the best way to explain this book. Along the way, he teaches you a great deal about (wait for it) virtual reality.The extremely clever part of the book is that Jaron Lanier examines how each person examines reality in a different way. He communicates this by telling his life story in the way he
Mesmerizingly EsotericA very surprising book from an extremely surprising person, best known for his public appearances as a public speaker or lecturer, as a musician innovating all the time in styles and with new at times exotic instruments, and as one of the historic founders of Virtual Reality. The book then is a typical likeness of the author. It contains fifty-two definitions of Virtual Reality from page 3 to page 309. You can sort them out, but it will be hard for you to make any global se...
Lanier's memoir-ish recounting of the creation of virtual reality technology and his philosophical musings on technology and how it impacts actual reality was well worth the read. I had numerous "of course" moments at the cross-cultural intersections of technology and society at large, i.e. technology and Silicon Valley intersecting with the psychedelic movement.
Keeping up with technology has become an impossible task for me. I have always been attracted to virtual reality, but couldn't always find the right places to look for information. Jaron Lanier has supplied it with this book. He has been a Silicon Valley stalwart since the early days, and steady proponent and creative force in the development of virtual reality. The great news is here is a tech guy who can write engaging prose about his life as well as technology. He makes technical material cle...
I thoroughly enjoyed this read. Having already read Lanier's other two books You Are Not a Gadget and Who Owns the Future, I'm very familiar with his humanist views on technology and the questionable ethics of how technology is being implemented in our current age - But Lanier is also the pioneer of Virtual Reality and in this book he reveals his incredible and bizarre life story. From raising goats and living in a geodesic dome of his own design in rural New Mexico, to making his way to a young...
A comprehensive explanation of the evolution of virtual reality and its related technologies, there are a few dozen attempts to define what it is Lanier has developed and promoted most of his life. More surprising to find so much autobiographical details from childhood onwards. An unconventional life made slightly suspect by his habit of being an unreliable narrator, yet fitting for some so immersed in illusion.
Well, I learned a lot about VR (e.g., why we'll never have floating holograms, VR programming concerns like latency, and the pros and cons of various interfaces). Lanier has a pretty rosy perspective of how the tech will develop, and why our experience with VR will be much more creative and positive than the existing opinion about video games and social media. Much of this book is memiors from a wild, alternative Bay-Area lifestyle. For better or for worse, there is a ton of name dropping (why e...
Virtual Reality as Life TherapyI admit it: I was wrong. After reading Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments, I dismissed him as a half-literate techno-traitor peddling some personal resentment about a mis-spent life in technology; but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Steered by another GR reader, I ran smack into Dawn of the New Everything and immediately began groveling. Lanier is not only someone of integrity, he is the kind of person who is worthwhile aspiring to in the very specific sense that he has...
The ideas in this book are so refreshing, thrilling, amusing, enlightening, and sad that they had me eagerly looking forward to another session with it whenever I got a chance. I found myself fearing what was to come as I read the final chapters. If I say I wish it had turned out differently, it wouldn’t make much difference. I am just so relieved & reassured that such people exist. We share a sensibility. I suppose such people forever be shunted aside by more talky types, louder but not more ca...
There are moments of wonderful insight in here, but way too few to justify a meandering memoir. I really enjoyed Lanier's interview on Ezra Klein's podcast and bought this book to hear more of that conversation, but the podcast was basically where all the good stuff was. It was fascinating to hear about the culture of silicon valley and Lanier's experiences in AI, but I just don't care enough about him or his life to have made this book worthwhile.
Usually when a man credited with coining a technical term, expounds about his creation, the outcome is inevitably anticipated to be dense, it not downright esoteric – expect for a segment of the populace that terms itself fraternity. Unless such a man goes by the name of Jaron Lanier that is. The author of the best-seller “You Are Not a Gadget”, and “Who Owns The Future”, in his latest book, “The Dawn Of the New Everything”, gives a vantage techno-spiritual overview of the concept of virtual rea...
Informative Read. Usually not my cup of tea - but I do believe if you are interested in Virtual Reality - then this is the book for you.
