Review : Future works

20 September 1997

What will the next fifty years of computing bring? How will it affect
business, science, art, our lives? Twenty-four of the world’s experts have clear
and stimulating ideas about these questions and more, in Beyond Calculation by
Peter Denning and Robert Metcalfe. This book has lots of surprises for readers
who thought they knew what computers were going to do. What’s clear is that the
future will be far more interesting: it’ll be more exciting than science
fiction, because the issues are being worked out right now. Published by
Copernicus, $27, ISBN 0387949321.