Want to learn about the coming Internet of Things? Read about the Victorian Internet

Bob Gourley January 8, 2016

In the late 1990’s Tom Standage released the first edition of a book that would sweep across the tech community because of its incredible analogies to the rise of the Internet hitting the world at that time. The “Victorian Internet“, first released in 1998, was updated and re-released again in 2013. It provided a well written history and meaningful assessment of the rise of the Telegraph, and made very interesting observations about how the remarkable impact of the Telegraph could help us all think through what may happen as the Internet progressed.

I just re-read the Victorian Internet, this time with the Internet of Things in mind, and would most strongly recommend you grab your copy and review it in that context as well. A new wave of technologies is going to sweep over humanity, and with it will come good and evil. And leaders will need to figure out how to sort out the hype from reality in this domain. The many lessons from history captured in this book should help us do that.

About Bob Gourley

Bob Gourley is the CTO and Co-Founder of the due diligence and cybersecurity consultancy OODA LLC , which publishes CTOvision.com and OODAloop.com. Bob's background is as an all source intelligence analyst and an enterprise CTO.

Gain Powerful Insights Into The Future With OODA Loop’s Technology Tracking

In a continuation of our journey to bring the best, most actionable technology content to enterprise decision-makers we have merged our research and reporting activities into the OODAloop.com site (both CTOvision.com and OODAloop.com are owned and operated by OODA LLC). CTOvision will focus only on one small niche, a vision for a technology enabled future. […]

CTOvision and OODA: Big Changes Coming Soon

In a continuation of our journey to bring the best, most actionable technology content to enterprise decision-makers we are merging our research and reporting activities into the OODAloop.com site (both CTOvision.com and OODAloop.com are owned and operated by OODA LLC). This will give our community access to the same technology summaries we currently produce as […]

Give Your Career A Boost By Learning From Experienced Decision Makers

Our video and audio podcast, the OODAcast, provides content that can help accelerate your career and improve your decision making. The series is based on interviews of some of the greatest most accomplished enterprise technologists we can find. We ask questions designed to pull out lessons applicable to accelerating the career of any professional. We […]

Think Twice Before Deciding To Use A Personal VPN: You could be getting some really bad advice

From the 1930s to 1950s (far too long) the medical community just would not wake up to the fact that cigarettes could cause harm (see More Doctors Smoke Camels). Why did they stick with this misperception for so long? When so many good people come to the wrong conclusion it probably means some deeply human […]

Please help spread the word: USNI and NIP Essay Contest: This year’s challenge area a key one for the nation

Please help share the content at this link to any thinker/writer you know: 2020 Information Warfare Essay Contest This contest is open to all contributors, active-duty, military, reservists, veterans, and civilians. Generally the winners have had a solid understanding of the nature of modern conflict, but really any thinkers/writers should look over the contest and […]

Centripetal wins historic $2.6-$3.2 Bil vs. Cisco Systems; largest US patent infringement award to date

Editor’s note: I am proud to say I have a history with Centripetal Networks serving on their board and then later as an advisor. It was horrible to learn that a Tech Titan like Cisco was infringing on their patents. It is good now to see when the facts were reviewed justice was done. -bg […]

Super Bowl Ads Indicate Big Businesses Think You Are Afraid of AI

Tom Loftus provided an insightful review of some of Super Bowl ads in the 4 Feb 2019 Wall Street Journal. Like AI parody in SNL, these ads really poked fun at computers: Seriously, did anyone catch the commercials? If the Super Bowl is the zeitgeist, then it is safe to say that America is not […]

HBO’s Westworld: The Man In Black is a special kind of Twitter user

HBO’s Westworld is a modern take on the Michael Crichton SciFi tale of a robotic amusement park. The HBO version has a new twist. The creators/writers were all exposed to years of Twitter, which has influenced every episode and the entire arch of two seasons of the show. Now that season two is wrapping up, […]

All Enterprise Techies Should Watch HBO’s SciFi Epic Westworld: It will help us dialog over shared experiences on what we will not be creating

Westworld season one was a great mix of science fiction and drama and action and it was done in a way that should help people think through many tech ethics questions, like how do we want to treat our robots? Does treating robots with violence change our nature? Can robots become sentient? HBO has a […]

Related