How “STAR WARS” and the Japanese Artificial Intelligence (AI) Threat Led to the Internet, Part III: NSFNET and the Atari Democrats
This is the third part of my argument about how the Internet changed from a military network to a wide scale global network of interconnected networks. In Part II I explained how the Japanese plan to create Artificial Intelligence (AI) struck fear into US policy-makers. While Part I discussed the impact of the Strategic Defense […]
Best IT/Media Policy Books
Sometimes I wonder if social media, as important as it is, is shielding us from the other important influences IT is having in our lives from the financial crisis we are recovering from, the way we conduct war and espionage, and the structural problems inherent in our economy.
How “STAR WARS” and the Japanese Artificial Intelligence (AI) Threat Led to the Internet, Part II
This is the second part of my argument about how the Internet changed from a military network to a widescale global network of interconnected networks. It is abstracted from my manuscript on How IT Came to Rule the World and continues the examination of statecraft and its role on the development and impact of computerization […]
How “STAR WARS” and the Japanese Artificial Intelligence (AI) Threat Led to the Internet
The announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) or “Star Wars” as it became popularly known, mobilized important resources that funded a major step in the emergence of the Internet and its World Wide Web.
How IT Came to Rule the World-The Information Standard and Other Sovereignties
President Nixon’s decision to close the gold window in 1971 signaled a dramatic shift in the US international financial policy and the future of the world political economy. The move largely meant the end of the containment of international finance set up at the end of World War II. No longer was the US constrained […]
How IT Came to Rule the World: Transformation of the Internet
What was initially a system connecting a few university and research institute mainframes soon began to also connect small workstations, personal computers, laptops and mobile wireless devices. People were able to access the Internet not just from campuses but from homes, offices, cars and even while on foot.
Apple, Silicon Valley and the Counter-Cultural Impulse
While Woz earned his title as the “Mozart of digital design” through his design of the Apple II, Jobs helped conceive the computer as a democratizing tool with the motto-“One person–one computer.” The microcomputer was sold as a tool that would balance the unequal relationship between institutions and the individual. It would empower the individual and allow their inner artist to emerge. The Apple II Computer went on to become the darling of the counter-cultural crowd and would remain a symbol of resistance against the corporate forces of IBM and later the predatory practices of Microsoft.
How IT Came to Rule the World, 2.7: The Origins of Microsoft
As kids, Bill Gates and Paul Allen dreamed of having their own Fortune 500 company. The two became friends (and sometimes adversaries) when the both attended the prestigious Lakeside School in Seattle in the early 1970s.
« go back — keep looking »Referencing this Material
About Me
Professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and strategic communications.
You can reach me at:
apennings70@gmail.com
anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr
About me
Writings by Category
- artificial intelligence
- automatrix
- books and films
- characteristics of digital media
- creative cities
- creative industries
- crisis communications
- cultural Industries
- data analytics and meaning
- democratic political economies
- digital coordination
- digital destruction
- digital geography
- digital media economics
- digital media management
- digital monetarism
- digital spreadsheets
- disruption
- dystopian economies
- educational innovations
- electric money
- enabling frameworks
- enterprise systems
- financial news
- financial technology
- food policy and security
- futurists
- geopolitical risk
- global communications
- global e-commerce
- health IT
- how IT came to rule the world
- intellectual property
- journalism
- meaning makers
- meaningful play
- media strategies
- mobile technologies
- multimedia
- political economies in sf
- political economy of media
- science and technology studies
- sensing technologies
- smart new deal
- social media
- space systems
- strategic communications
- sustainable development
- technologies of meaning
- technology management
- telecom policy and net neutrality
- telegraphic political economy
- telelearn/telework
- the cold war
- the smith effect
- uncategorized
- visual literacy and rhetoric