Technology & Innovation — December 25, 2010

Are Computers Good for Writers?

Is the computer really a better pencil? Will it lead to better writing? Just about every other new writing instrument has been seen as a threat to literacy and a corrupter of youth.

bigthinkeditor

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Hardware and software for word processing have evolved to the point where the computer screen gives quite a good imitation of what words will look like on the printed page…Now that we have finally attained this long-sought goal of ink-on-paper verisimilitude, the future prospects of paper itself seem a little tattered around the edges. Much text today is not only written on the screen but also read on the screen. Few Web pages, blogs, e-mail messages or Facebook updates are ever printed out, and newspapers, magazines and books are distributed online in editions designed to be read on computers or on more-specialized devices such as the Kindle. Virtual paper is displacing the real thing.

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Pessimists Archive

GUI: Some doubted, even Woz

Graphical user interfaces are how most of us interact with computers, from iPhones to laptops. But they were once condemned as making students lazy and destroying the art of writing.

Portrait of Tal Golesworthy by Dave Imms

Health

The engineer who fixed his own heart

When Tal Golesworthy was told he was at risk of his aorta bursting, he wasn’t impressed with the surgery on offer – so he came up with his own idea.

Guest Thinkers

The Introduction to my Newly Released Book, Physics of the Future!

Released just yesterday, Physics of the Future is my most ambitious book to date. Based on interviews with over three hundred of the world’s top scientists, who are already inventing the […]

Guest Thinkers

AU Students Debate the Internet’s Impact on Society, Part B

This fall in the sophomore-level course I teach on “Communication and Society,” we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter […]

Guest Thinkers

AU Students Debate the Internet’s Impact on Society, Part A

This fall in the sophomore-level course I teach on “Communication and Society,” we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter […]

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