Amber Case's Illustrated Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology
If you want to thrive in the future, it might help to read the manual. Software designer, CEO and 21st century renaissance woman Amber Case has published An Illustrated Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology. It’s a light-hearted guide to ideas that permeate our lives in networked societies whether we know it or not. Humans, dogs, bees and even the computers themselves all use information technology to extend themselves. We’re all cyborgs. We may not realize it, but we are. When we extend our memories by storing them in Gmail or Evernote, when we’re ambiently aware of people far away thanks to their status updates, or when we switch identities by switching accounts, we’re experimenting with a new, extended kind of humanity. But the more you examine our behaviors, and even those of other species, the more you realize that we have all kinds of customs, languages and codes that extend ourselves. There’s no clear line between these kinds of organic technologies and the ones we plug into the w...