Excerpts from the Book America 2076 by Ralph Perrine

Introduction: What is “Pop Technology?”

In the book title, I use the phrase "Pop Technology" to refer to the popularization of technologies that exist for the benefit of individuals rather than corporations or governments. In the past 20 years a steady stream of important investments and breakthroughs in computing and communications technologies have given individuals unprecedented capabilities - capabilities previously reserved for government and the richest corporations. The popularization of technology coincides with several trends:

• Technology is now affordable to individuals and its costs continue to decrease
• At the same time the power and capabilities of technology continue to advance
• There are increasing resources available to educate and assist people in using technology
• Technology is becoming simpler and easier to use (and more accessible to individuals with disabilities)

Think about what the average cell phone can do today: conference calls, email, photography and more. Millions can watch a television show and vote for a contestant using their cell phone. Individuals can record their own "radio shows" and podcast over the web to an audience that far exceeds the geographical reach of any single radio station. Personal computing devices that fit into your pocket are more powerful than ever, and function as phone, computer, and game station. With desktop computers and laptops, entrepreneurs build their own web sites, online businesses and stores, and take advantage of systems that just a few years ago were affordable only to the largest companies. On the web, individuals publish their writings, create and join causes, and share their thoughts with each other. Likewise, students and scholars use powerful search tools to retrieve - in seconds - specific information from collections of material that dwarf the holdings of the largest libraries in the world.

Thanks to the rise of pop technology, individuals can quickly and easily do things that used to be utterly impossible.

Next: Implications for Democracy

Ralph Perrine is author of 12 Drawings That Will Change Your Life and other works.

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