One Digital Day: How the Microchip is Changing Our World 1st Edition

The ubiquitous microchip is celebrated in soma 200 color photographs, taken in the course of one day (July 11, 1997) by approximately 100 photojournalists scattered around the globe. While we may take it for granted that the microprocessor has infiltrated and altered almost every element of life having to do with technology, it's still startling to see how pervasive its influence is. A portrait of Thai monks gathered `round a computer to study the teachings of the Buddha, of a Chinese sailor steering his junk and blithely chatting on a cellular telephone, or of a group of rural South African pensioners lining up at a computer that will identify them by their fingerprints before issuing a monthly check are likely to surprise even a jaded technophile. Much of the book, however, focuses on the specific ways in which the microchip is expanding life's possibilities, with a heavy stress on how microchip-driven technology is helping to cure disease and enhance the lives of those with a variety of disabilities. The upbeat message throughout is hardly surprising, given that the project was sponsored by the Intel Corporation. Still, as a primer on cutting edge work in health, the environment, And other sciences, and as a vivid tour of the world's obsession with all things technological, One Digital Day is breezily effective. (First serial to Fortune; $300,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Rick Smolan, creator of the photo-rich Day in the Life series of coffee-table books, has brought his formula to the universe of computing with One Digital Day. Through often-magnificent photography, One Digital Day works hard to make dull computing look cool. It purports to capture the human race in the early stages of a metamorphosis. For example, computers are shown assisting chicken farmers, locating points of origin for stray bullets in inner cities, enabling firefighters to peer through dense smoke and helping a blind girl read by converting text to Braille. Smolan, Erwitt and designer Tom Walker have created a book that shows just how close our relationship to the microchip has become. -- Upside, Michael Mattis

in history has spread so quickly throughout the world, or revolutionized so many aspects of human existence, as the microchip. Little more than a quarter century since its invention, there are now nearly 15 billion microchips in use worldwide -- the equivalent of two powerful computers for every man, woman, and child on the planet.  The microprocessor is not only changing the products we use, but also the way we live, and, ultimately, the way we perceive reality. <br><br><b>ONE DIGITAL DAY</b> is the result of a unique project designed to make people aware of the thousands of microprocessors we unknowingly encounter every day. Rick Smolan, creator of the award-winning Day in the Life photography books and the bestseller 24 Hours in Cyberspace, sent 100 of the world's most talented photojournalists around the globe on July 11, 1997. Their mission: to depict intimate and emotional stories of how this tiny chip -- a square of silicon the size of a fingernail, weighing less than a p

In 1991, photojournalist Rick Smolan and his partner Jennifer Erwitt founded Against All Odds Productions, a multimedia publisher specializing in large-scale photographic projects that combine compelling storytelling with state-of-the-art technology.   A former Time, Life, and National Geographic photographer, Smolan had previously created the bestselling Day in the Life photography series.  More than three million copies of his Day in the Life books are in print, and one of them, A Day in the Life of America, spent more than a year on the New York Times Bestseller List.

The first interactive project released by Against All Odds was From Alice to Ocean: Alone Across the Outback.  It gained international recognition as the first illustrated book ever to include an interactive CD-ROM disc, and has since become one of the most recognized multimedia titles in the world of interactive publishing. The San Francisco Chronicle called From Alice to Ocean "a stunning, addictive and mesmerizing experience that may well change the course of publishing forever."

Against All Odds then produced Passage to Vietnam, which caught a rare glimpse of a nation caught in the midst of dramatic change. First released as a large-format illustrated book in the Fall of 1994, Passage to Vietnam was featured on "Good Morning America" and CNN, and in an eight-page photo excerpt in Newsweek. The CD-ROM version of Passage to Vietnam, co-published with Interval Research and distributed by Broderbund Software, was released in June 1994. The Wall Street Journal called it "a thing of beauty on a PC screen," and the CD won numerous industry awards including the prestigious Codie Award for Best Overall Multimedia Production of 1996 and the NewMedia INVISION Award for Best of Show, 1995.

In February 1996, Against All Odds orchestrated 24 Hours in Cyberspace -- the largest online event ever to take place in a single day.  The goal of the project was to tell compelling human interest stories about how Cyberspace is changing people's lives -- to create a global portrait of the human face of the on-line revolution. The project resulted in an illustrated book published in November 1996; it was featured on ABC-TV's "Nightline" and appeared as a cover story in US News & World Report. A photographic exhibition of 24 Hours in Cyberspace opened at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in January 1997, and at that time the project's Web site was inducted into the Museum's permanent archives.

Against All Odds Productions is located in Sausalito, California.

Twenty years ago, while skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho, I was on a chairlift
with a fellow skier. As we rose up above the valley, we talked about
what we did for a living. I explained to her that I made microchips and
I tried to describe what they were and what they did. But the more I
said the more puzzled she became. Finally, I pointed to my digital
watch, a new fangled gadget at the time, and I explained that inside was
a chip-a sliver of silicon-keeping the time and changing the digits. She
still looked confused, so I politely changed the subject.

Recently I thought about how much the world has changed since that
chairlift conversation, and I found myself looking for a tangible way to
demonstrate the remarkable and often invisible ways in which
microchips-microprocessors, microcontrollers and memory chips-are now
woven into the fabric of life in many corners of the world.

To mark the occasion of Intel's thirtieth anniversary and to capture the
incredible impact microprocessors have had on everyday life, Intel
decided to sponsor the book you are holding in your hands. Last July, on
an ordinary day, 100 of the world's leading photojournalists were sent to
every corner of the globe to capture the human face of the computer
revolution during a single 24-hour period. This book is the result: an
extraordinary visual time capsule.

As you turn these pages, you'll see a world being reshaped by technology
in ways previously unthinkable. For one thing, the photographs show the
effect of the millions of personal computers now in use. Increasingly,
these computers are connected in networks, which are in turn linked to
form what is rapidly becoming a global nervous system. World news,
personal correspondence, educational pursuits, music, art and business
now flow seamlessly through this network, merging Detroit, Dakar and
Delhi into one place.

But microprocessors are also penetrating and improving existing products
of every conceivable kind. Today's cars, for example, have numerous
microprocessors tucked away inside of them to control brakes, lock doors
and to remind you to fasten your seat belt. Microprocessors are in toys
and thermostats; in cellular phones and automatic teller machines. They
change how existing products function and allow the creation of new ones.
In the aggregate, they change how we live, how we work, how we entertain
ourselves and how we are able to imagine-and thus create-the world our
children will inherit.

We've come a long way from the time when a digital watch was the best
example I had to explain the microchip. Intel's sixty-thousand plus
employees are proud of the pivotal roles we have played in the history of
the computer revolution. We hope you will enjoy this photographic record
of an ordinary day in the life of the microprocessor.

Andy Grove
Chairman and CEO of Intel Corporation