COMMENTARY
The All-Seeing Eye
As technology records and disperses our images, movements, and vital statistics, privacy starts to look less like a fundamental human right.
SOCIETY
Sensors & Sensibility
Costs, convenience, and security all converge on this: a world with more sensors, bigger databases, and much less privacy.
By Jean Kumagai & Steven Cherry
ANALYSIS
We Like to Watch
Who will control the tools of surveillance and analysis: governments, corporations, John and Jane Q. Public, or all of the above?
By Harry Goldstein
FICTION
Synthetic Serendipity
The localizer networks, immersive realities, and wearable computers of 2020 have changed a lot of things. But luck still favors the bold.
By Vernor Vinge
FUTURE TECH
Mike Villas's World
The technologies that define the Southern California dreamscape of "Synthetic Serendipity" -- sensor networks, augmented-reality games, wearable computers, and silent messaging -- are based on prototypes and products emerging from today's labs.
By Harry Goldstein