Dawn of the New Everything, Jaron Lanier
Dawn of the New Everything, Jaron Lanier
2 Rating(s)
List: $32.99 | Sale: $23.10
Club: $16.49

Dawn of the New Everything
Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality

Author: Jaron Lanier

Narrator: Oliver Wyman

Unabridged: 14 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/21/2017


Synopsis

"[Oliver Wyman] narrates in a reflective tone that fits well with Lanier's mix of recollections, philosophy, and explanations of technology...Lanier takes the listener through VR breakthroughs like Nintendo's Power Glove and delves into the psychology involved in the VR experience." — AudioFile Magazine

In this captivating audiobook, Jaron Lanier —The father of virtual reality — explains its dazzling possibilities by reflecting on his own lifelong relationship with technology

Bridging the gap between tech mania and the experience of being inside the human body, Dawn of the New Everything is a look at what it means to be human at a moment of unprecedented technological possibility.

Through a fascinating look back over his life in technology, Jaron Lanier, an interdisciplinary scientist and father of the term “virtual reality,” exposes VR’s ability to illuminate and amplify our understanding of our species, and gives listeners a new perspective on how the brain and body connect to the world.

An inventive blend of autobiography, science writing, philosophy and advice, this audiobook tells the wild story of his personal and professional life as a scientist, from his childhood in the UFO territory of New Mexico, to the loss of his mother, the founding of the first start-up, and finally becoming a world-renowned technological guru.

Understanding virtual reality as being both a scientific and cultural adventure, Lanier demonstrates it to be a humanistic setting for technology. While his previous publications offered a more critical view of social media and other manifestations of technology, in this audiobook he argues that virtual reality can actually make our lives richer and fuller.

About Jaron Lanier

Jaron Lanier is a scientist, musician, and writer best known for his work in virtual reality and his advocacy of humanism and sustainable economics in a digital context. His 1980s start-up VPL Research created the first commercial VR products and introduced avatars, multi-person virtual world experiences, and prototypes of major VR applications such as surgical simulation. His books Who Owns the Future? and You Are Not a Gadget were international bestsellers, and Dawn of the New Everything was named a 2017 best book of the year by The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Vox.

About Oliver Wyman

Oliver Wyman, a native New Yorker, has appeared on stage as well as in film, and television. He is one of the founders of New York City's Collective Unconscious theater, and his performances include the award-winning “reality play” Charlie Victor Romeo and A.R. McElhinney's cult classic film A Chronicle of Corpses. He also lent his voice to several episodes of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Oliver's work as a narrator extends to over 150 audiobooks and has won many him awards, including Audie awards for his reading of Lance Armstrong's autobiography, It's Not About the Bike, and Thomas L. Friedman's The World is Flat. He also read James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, Tim Dorsey's Atomic Lobster, and David Weber's By Schism Rent Asunder. Oliver has won five Audie Awards from the Audio Publisher's Association, fourteen Earphone Awards from AudioFile Magazine, and two Listen Up Awards from Publisher's Weekly. Oliver was named a 2008 Best Voice in Nonfiction & Culture by AudioFile Magazine.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Trish on June 15, 2018

The ideas in this book are so refreshing, thrilling, amusing, enlightening, and sad that they had me eagerly looking forward to another session with it whenever I got a chance. I found myself fearing what was to come as I read the final chapters. If I say I wish it had turned out differently, it wou......more

Goodreads review by Tonstant on December 31, 2017

To many people, Jaron Lanier is the father of virtual reality. He coined the term in its contemporary usage though points to an older, literary use. Lanier is a credit-sharer, not a credit-grabber, so this memoir of his childhood, early work and years at VPL Research, Inc. is full of sharing the cre......more

Goodreads review by Kent on July 09, 2018

Lanier's memoir-ish recounting of the creation of virtual reality technology and his philosophical musings on technology and how it impacts actual reality was well worth the read. I had numerous "of course" moments at the cross-cultural intersections of technology and society at large, i.e. technolo......more

Goodreads review by Carl on July 19, 2018

Keeping up with technology has become an impossible task for me. I have always been attracted to virtual reality, but couldn't always find the right places to look for information. Jaron Lanier has supplied it with this book. He has been a Silicon Valley stalwart since the early days, and steady pro......more

Goodreads review by Blake on March 19, 2018

I thoroughly enjoyed this read. Having already read Lanier's other two books You Are Not a Gadget and Who Owns the Future, I'm very familiar with his humanist views on technology and the questionable ethics of how technology is being implemented in our current age - But Lanier is also the pioneer of......more


Quotes

"[Narrator Oliver] Wyman narrates in a reflective tone that fits well with Lanier's mix of recollections, philosophy, and explanations of technology. Wyman shares Lanier's enthusiasm for explaining VR concepts, as when the author compares the listener's head to a spy submarine to convey an idea." -AudioFile


Awards

  • The Economist Magazine Books of the Year