Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
An eye-opening look at the new computer revolution and the coming transformation of our economy, society, and culture.

A hundred years ago, companies stopped producing their own power with steam engines and generators and plugged into the newly built electric grid. The cheap power pumped out by electric utilities not only changed how businesses operated but also brought the modern world into existence. Today a similar revolution is under way. Companies are dismantling their private computer systems and tapping into rich services delivered over the Internet. This time it's computing that's turning into a utility. The shift is already remaking the computer industry, bringing new competitors like Google to the fore and threatening traditional stalwarts like Microsoft and Dell. But the effects will reach much further. Cheap computing will ultimately change society as profoundly as cheap electricity did. In this lucid and compelling book, Nicholas Carr weaves together history, economics, and technology to explain why computing is changing—and what it means for all of us.

Rating : - What is the boundary between the internet and you?
Nicholas Carr is the Harvard professor who wrote the "Does IT Matter?" article in the Harvard Business Review a few years ago (and who consequently got a bunch of people agitated). In the Big Switch, he looks at the evolving structure of the internet and sees parallels with how the electrical grid evolved over the last century. He rolls the story forward and like Jonathan Zittrain in "The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It" he finds some things to worry about. They are big things.

What are the implications when in the name of convenience, simplicity, personalization, and good service your every click is understood by Google (or whomever)? What are the human implications of Google knowing (or being able to infer) lots about lots, and lots about you - all without your knowledge? What are the implications that the device on your belt or on your desk is not fully in your control? Here's a couple real world teasers that the tech savvy among you will spot as technologically trivial: Did you know that your PC camera and microphone can be turned on without your knowledge? Same for cell phones ... even when they are powered off. Same for "OnStar in your car").

This book and others begin an interesting debate about the boundary between the internet and you. If the internet becomes the world's "brain" what does that mean? And if this does comes to pass, what is your future as an autonomous individual? This is a big question. It's not yet answered (and only marginally posed). But it does get me thinking about those old Star Trek scenes about "assimilation by the borg". Before the borg got all pushy about joining the club, did they actually have a sales pitch? Would it be familiar to what we hear today? Just wondering ...