Dan Dare or Dan Daren’t
Austin Williams | 3 October 2008 Whatever happened to the jet-pack; the monorail; the personalised Lear jet; Maglev taxis; automated highways; long-haul flights by space shuttle? All of these strange and wonderful transport ideas were commonplace Utopian ambitions for the future as seen by the Sixties’ generation. Most of them were even technologically possible back then. Today, if there is ever mention of anything so fanciful, it...
Taking a shortcut around the digital divide
Martyn Perks | 1 March 2007 Sunderland City Council has just won the Digital Challenge competition and been awarded £3.5m by government. While digital inclusion has become a major focus for funding and social renewal, it is questionable whether IT is actually being used for the right reasons. While this funding package is obviously good news for the local authority’s accountants, what does it really mean to those who have been...
Technology and Obsolescence
‘Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America’ by Giles Slade; Harvard University Press, 2007. 336pp Reviewed by Austin Williams | 30 November 2007 I wasn’t looking forward to this book. The title seemed to sum up two popular contemporary pastimes, a despondency about societal progress and a condescension towards American (over)consumption. With its dust-jacket displaying a mountain of discarded computer...
The Story of Creative Engineering
‘Masterworks of Technology: The Story of Creative Engineering, Architecture and Design’ by EE Lewis; Prometheus Books, 2004. 328pp Reviewed by Austin Williams | 20 September 2004 What a refreshing change, as they say. This is a book that oozes calm intelligence and an ease of imparting knowledge that at once informs and avoids patronising its audience. ‘Unlike scientists,’ he says, ‘who seek comprehension of the natural...
iRobot
‘I, Robot’ by Isaac Asimov; Collins, 1971. 256pp Reviewws by Dave Clements | 28 April 2005 In this collection of short stories written in the 1940s, Asimov explores the human condition and our changing understanding of it, vis-a-vis the robot. Each is linked by the reminisces of Susan Calvin, robo-psychologist with US Robot and Mechanical Men, Inc. ‘Robbie’ is the playmate that causes a mother to worry about...
Tomorrow's World
David Clements | 13 December 2003 ‘One year ago, Tomorrow’s World was cancelled,’ announced Austin Williams, convenor of the one-day conference Future Vision: Future Cities and chair of the final plenary ‘Tomorrow’s World: Visions of the Future ‘. Indeed, as the knowing laughs from the audience suggested, even though the reference was to the former BBC flagship of TV Science, the implications are wider...
Dan Dare, or Dan Daren't
‘Future Visions: Future Cities’ Conference, London School of Economics, 6 December 2003 Reviewed by Dave Clements | 11 December 2003 The Future Visions: Future Cities conference, supported by the Architects Journal, examined the role of the city through the prism of politics, culture and economics. Future Visions: Future Cities (FV: FC) was billed as an exploration of ‘city visions: past and present’, taking on the...
Interview with Peter Schwartz
‘Inevitable Surprises: A Survival Guide for the 21st Century’ Free Press (Simon & Schuster), 2003. 320pp Peter Schwartz interview by Austin Williams | 20 November 2003 I first heard Peter Schwartz speak when he attended the press launch of Steven Spielberg’s ‘Minority Report’ at the National Film Theatre on the South Bank. He joined an impressive panel of speakers who had been assembled to describe,...
Futuro: Tomorrow’s House from Yesterday
‘Futuro: Tomorrow’s House from Yesterday’ by Marko Home and Mika Taanila (Eds); Desura (Finland), 2003. 192pp Review by Maari Vertainen | 4 November 2003 The book of the film of the concept of the building. When, in 1965, Dr Jaakko Hiidenkari asked Matti Suuronen to design a ski cabin that would be ‘quick to heat and easy to construct in rough terrain’ the result was a simple, space-age structure that...
Tomorrow's People
‘Tomorrow’s People: How 21st Century Technology Is Changing The Way We Think And Feel’ by Susan Greenfield; Allen Lane, 2003. 304pp Reviewed by Dave Clements | October 2003 In Tomorrow’s People, Greenfield, renowned neuroscientist and director of the Royal Institution, indulges her literary ambitions to create a speculative dystopia owing much to Huxley. In this updated Brave New World, she imagines a near-future...
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