Customer Reviews

TechTV's Catalog of Tomorrow

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While the advancement of computing technology gets most of the major headlines, there are an enormous number of other technical advances that will dramatically change our lives in the next decade. Some, like the development of extremely small machines, are major differences in kind from what we now have. However, many are simply the results of continued advances that have been proceeding at various speeds for decades. One example of this is the generation of electric power from wind. It was given a temporary boost in the late 70's as a consequence of what was then called the "energy crunch", but shortly after, fell out of favor. After two decades of low-velocity progress and rising utility rates, windmills are now economically viable alternatives to other types of power plants.
Both revolutionary and evolutionary advancements are covered in this book. I found some of the descriptions to be rather routine, but others were extremely interesting, really piquing my interests. A series of pointers to relevant web sites is included at the end of each section and I took advantage of many of them. The most fascinating of all the topics in the book is that of nanomachines, extremely small machines that can be programmed to repair or destroy things. While such machines could be a force for great achievement, they also pose a great danger and in fact may be the ultimate weapon of terror and blackmail. It is conceivable that nanomachines could be released into an area and activated by a coded message to destroy only selected people or structures.
None of the topics covered in this book was new to me, all appeared in the literature over a decade ago. Nevertheless, it was refreshing to read about them again and realize that, despite all of our problems and fears, we really are better off that we were a few decades ago. Technical progress continues at a rapid pace and offers us solutions to the difficulties that humans encounter and in some cases generate. It makes you optimistic about the future.

The book review from DingBat Magazine:
Here's a fab, futurist extravaganza-nearly 300 glossy illustrated pages of where we'll probably be tomorrow. The list of contributing visionaries is impressive (Howard Rheingold, Jef Raskin, Douglas Rushkoff, and others) and the illustrations superb. Just pop open the covers and you'll be sucked right into the vortex of spellbinding trends & cutting edges... like "Floating Cities" which includes plans for the "Freedom Ship" -a city on a boat a mile long, wide as two football fields, and high as a 25-story building! There's literally something for everyone here, with sections on cloning, biotech food, smart garments, digital paper, telemedicine, the future office, cryonics, biowarfare, deep sea exploration, and a whole lot more. It's more readable than WIRED and a lot more fun. A dazzling dreambook the whole family will enjoy.

I loved this book. My father gave it to me and I'm fascinated. There are a lot of things in here that I had no idea about -- especially scientific developments that may have huge impacts on our society. The book makes its ideas very understandable, and I especially like that they provide links to places for more information. If my father hadn't given it to me, I would have given it to him.

The graphics aren't the greatest but the information is captivating and the discussions about current and future technologies were very interesting. The writers don't look far into the future but they do take current tech and see where it will be in the next couple of years.

...bought it right away - it totally delivered. It's a great overview of the trends and new technologies that are going to influence us in the next coming years, and it's written for someone who isn't themselves a geek. I totally recommend this book for people who are interested in the future, but don't have PHD.

TechTV made a decision to go "wide" rather than "deep". That let them talk about a lot of issues - there's everything in the book from the future of medical technologies to the future of the movies. The downside is that the articles are fairly short. But overall, this is an enjoyable, informative look at a wide number of trends - I highly recommend it.

...

Here's a fab, futurist extravaganza - nearly 300 glossy illustrated pages of where we'll probably be tomorrow. The list of contributing visionaries is impressive (Howard Rheingold, Jef Raskin, Douglas Rushkoff, and others) and the illustrations superb. Just pop open the covers and you'll be sucked right into the vortex of spellbinding trends & cutting edges... like "Floating Cities" which includes plans for the "Freedom Ship" a city on a boat a mile long, wide as two football fields, and high as a 25-story building! There's literally something for everyone here, with sections on cloning, biotech food, smart garments, digital paper, telemedicine, the future office, cryonics, biowarfare, deep sea exploration, and a whole lot more. It's more readable than WIRED and a lot more fun.

...The future, being what it is, is notoriously hard to predict. Ed Zolli realizes the inherent difficulty of predicting the future but still remains bold enough to edit together some well-informed guesses in "Tech TV's Catalog of Tomorrow"...

"Tech TV's Catalog of Tomorrow" has a well-ordered layout. First divided into very broad but related sections like "Our Tools" or "Our Society." The broad categories are winnowed down a bit to section titles like "Computing" or "Nanotechnology" followed finally by individual article with titles like "Broadband" and "Cyborgs." This makes the book easy to navigate and reference but saps some of the fun out of "Tech TV's Catalog of Tomorrow". Since you always know exactly what's coming there's never one of those "Wow, look what I found" feeling you while thumbing through less organized futuristic looking tomes.

The real meat of the book is, of course, the individual articles. Each article is accompanied by a timeline for likely adoption of the topic at hand, two circles indicting relative risk and benefit, a color photograph or artists rendering and a few related links for those still curious after reading the article. It's visually pleasing format and very well laid out but the topics and prose are really what we're after. The topics for the articles run from utterly predictable "Gene Therapy" (already in use to a small extent) to the seemingly outlandish "Floating Cities"(a 4,500 foot boat). I prefer the more outlandish future predications but "Catalog of Tomorrow" keeps mostly to the rational. I suppose this is because the articles are well written and researched and not mere speculation that some authors are known to trot out. I would predict that "Catalog of Tomorrow" will probably fare better than average if reviewed for accuracy in a hundred years, still some groundless guessing would have been great for entertainment value.

No one book is going to make everyone happy and this was the case for me while reading "Tech TV's Catalog of Tomorrow". It's not that I think it's a bad book, it's just not what I am used to when authors opine on the future...If you are partial to a more factual, logically sound bit of crystal gazing then "Tech TV's Catalog of Tomorrow" is for you.

Bottom Line: Nicely written, nicely illustrated, and even oversized. "Tech TV's Catalog of Tomorrow" is above average in every way.

MacMice Rating: 3 out of 5...

Being a TechTV fan, and someone who really enjoyed the two Leo Laporte Almanacs they've put out (both of which are chock full of great computer tips), I was pretty excited when I heard about this book. That makes my disappointment even greater.

First of all, it looks like a bunch of teen magazine graphic artist rejects designed it. Its pages are crammed with color and visuals (most of which look like cheap clip art), but it still ends up being deadly dull -- like the combination of a high school textbook and a lame sales brochure.

Of course, the presentation wouldn't matter so much if the content was great, but it's not. What's in store in the future? Let's see -- body piercings and tatoos, cute robots, online relationships, wireless networks, multiplayer games, smart cards -- what great futurist visions! How about calling it "Catalog of the Last Five to Ten Years" instead.

What's worse is there ARE some truely fresh and forward-looking ideas touched on in the book, but they (like all the topics within) are given such shallow, sales-brochure-like treatments that anyone truly interested in the topics will be left deeply unsatisfied.

It's a shame TechTV decided to exploit the goodwill of its loyal fans by pushing such a thoroughly mediocre product on them.

Granted, the articles do not go into belaboring details about each and every possible future development. But that is perfectly acceptable, as this is not designed to be a technical manual. In fact is's simply a speculative set of ideas of what might be coming based upon current trends. Granted it's generalist, and there is perhaps a bit of fluff.

But to go into any significant detail would have required significantly more effort/research, would have made the book about 5x as thick and jacked up the price majorly. As it is, it's inexpensive and a wonderful read. The articles are short enough to keep your attention, with enough details and related links/articles to give you more areas/ways to research if you're not satisfied by a particular insight or article.

Being a cyberpunk genre fan, and having wanted an in to the genre when I thought of writing, I actually bought this as something of a future tech reference book. Anyone who wanted inspiratino to write further speculative fiction could all but flip to a page and use one of the articles to base 2-3 stories off of.

Truly a remarkable book for what it is. I highly reccommend it. So long as you don't expect it to give you "step-by-step instructions on how to build a pocket-sized thermonuclear device" type material and detail, you probab;y won't be disappointed it's essentially a glossed over/abstracted down set of articles which are interesting and moderately informative.

Happy purchasing!