Technofutures: How Leading-Edge Technology Will Transform Business in the 21st Century (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "As I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge coming back from a meeting in San Francisco, I thought, We live in extreme times..." (more)
Key Phrases: Fin Fin, Knowledge Value, Artificial Life (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Dr. Canton has given us an engaging, entertaining, yet thought-provoking glimpse of the future. -- Dr. Teruaki Aoki, President and COO, Sony Electronics, Inc.

Insightful and on the mark. A must-read for any cyber entrepreneur. -- Ted Leonsis, President, America Online Interactive Properties Group

Technofutures is the essential guide to the future of business. It is bold and provocative, yet realsitic. -- Rudy Burger CEO MIT's Media Lab - Europe

This marvelous and realistic insight into the future makes reevaluate everything in the future society . . . a brilliant futurist. -- Dr. Nino Vidovic, Vice President, AT&T Labs

Product Description

Technofutures provides a visionary and bold forecast of how leading-edge technology will transform business and society in the 21st century. This book is a blueprint for carving out competitive advantage. If you want an informative, entertaining and easy-to-access briefing of what innovations will shape the future then Technofutures is for you. Find out what the future holds for customers, lifestyles, and markets. Discover what the future of health care, financial services, entertainment, computers, nanotechnology and education will be. Hold on to your seat as Dr. Canton, who CNN calls the Future Guru forecasts the top trends you must know about now to thrive in the 21st century.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 285 pages
• Publisher: Hay House (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561706531
• ISBN-13: 978-1561706532
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,268,073 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant insight on key trends and innovations., September 22, 1999

By A Customer

This is one futurist in a million that has it right! From the future of electronic commerce, robots, bioscience, computers and more--it is a comprehensive tour of the next century written by a noted futurist who makes sense. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in preparing for the future and in understanding the tech chaos all around us. Easy to read, accessible and imaginative for the CEO or college student.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Will Our Future Be Technofutures?, April 10, 2002

By	Peggy Wong (Honolulu, HI USA) - See all my reviews

TechnoFutures is written by Dr. James Canton. Dr. Canton is one of the leading technology futurists, and he is editor-in-chief of the Canton Technology Report. This book is about how technology will continue to bring impacts and changes, both economically and socially, to our lives. With the evolution of technological development, the interaction between human and technology will become inseparable.

According to the author, in terms of economic changes, e-business will eventually dominate the traditional business practice. The industries that will be transformed by e-business included stock brokerage, insurance, travel, auto, chemicals, media and entertainment, computer and electronics, telecommunications, real estate, medicine and health care, etc. As Dr. Canton suggested, if we want to survive through the 21st century, we must learn how to adopt e-business technology.

In terms of social impacts, technology will bring impacts at both the personal and collective levels. In the future, our personal lives will involve computers, robots and virtual reality. Robots and computers will play a role as a companion such as a housekeeper, a secretary, or even a friend to human. And as for human, we will engage more activities via virtual reality such as playing golf. For the latter one, educational changes will be a good example. Educational institutions will change their formats of teaching. Instead of the traditional classroom learning, students and teachers will meet via virtual schools.

By means of frequent sidebars, the author has provided readers an insight of our evolving technological world with vivid scenes and dialogues amongst the robots, cyber companions and human. However, the design and placement of these sidebars, often of similar fonts right in between the texts proper, could sometimes be confusing. Also, the author could have arranged the hierarchy, if any, of the sub- and sub-sub-titles of his chapters better, so that the readers can better digest the often far-fetched subject matters. Indeed, the subject matters discussed sometimes verged on science fiction rather than scientific prediction. This is most evident in the author¡¦s discussion of cyborgs and androids, all, perhaps coincidentally, also prominently featured in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I do appreciate, however, the author¡¦s efforts in making technical matters easier to understand for lay persons. There is, as far as I can see, no one single formula in the book. The author is also good in presenting moral issues for deeper thoughts, such as that concerning eugenics.

Although Dr. Canton¡¦s future world may seem too advanced for most of us, we are in fact living in an information society. This book has provided me a chance to be aware of our technological developments and dare me to envision our future world from a non-traditional perspective. Overall, I enjoy reading the book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational, informative and captivating, February 29, 2000

By	Andrew Donahey (San Francisco - California) - See all my reviews

Dr. Canton is Heinleinesque in the way he weaves a coherent, congruent, knowledgeable and thoroughly entertaining story about the future of technology and its influence on our lives. I believe his predictions serve as a blueprint for where to position your career, investments and personal interests over the next half century. I was blown away by his insight into the future of medicine, specifically and quite selfishly, his prediction that I may clone my favorite dog right down to its personality. Dr. Canton forced me to my learning and dreaming edge, right where you want to be if your goal is to endeavor into the technological fray, but aren't sure exactly how and where.