Tools for Thought

The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology

Paperback, 360 pages

English language

Published April 18, 2000 by The MIT Press.

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4 stars (1 review)

Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology is a work of "retrospective futurism" in which Smart Mobs author Howard Rheingold looked at the history of computing and then attempted to predict what the networked world might look like in the mid-1990s. The book covers the groundbreaking work of thinkers like Alan Turing, John von Neumann, and J.C.R. Licklider, as well as Xerox PARC, Apple Computer, and Microsoft (when Microsoft was "aiming for the hundred-million-dollar category"). Rheingold wrote that the impetus behind Tools for Thought was to understand where "mind-amplifying technology" was going by understanding where it came from.

6 editions

Subjects

  • General Theory of Computing
  • Impact of computing & IT on society
  • Impact of science & technology on society
  • Social forecasting, futurology
  • Social history
  • Computer Science (General)
  • Philosophy Of Technology
  • Computers
  • Technology & Industrial Arts
  • Psychology
  • General
  • Social Aspects
  • Technology / Social Aspects
  • Computer Science
  • History
  • Microcomputers
  • Technological innovations