The title THE BEST OF TECHNOLOGY WRITING 2006 is a little misleading, given the fact that only writings published in 2005 were considered for the collection. The by-now-aged stories in no way hampered my enjoyment of them, however. For these aren’t your typical technology journalism articles; you won’t find any product reviews or how-to guides on obsolete products.
Edited by Brendan I. Koerner, the book starts with one of the best underdog stories I’ve read, “La Vida Robot” by Joshua Davis. This is the tale of four Hispanic illegals attending Carl Hayden Community High School who enroll in an engineering competition. They must design a working underwater robot and perform a series of tasks with the robot in front of a panel of judges. Oh, and they have a budget of $800 and are competing against MIT engineering students who have secured corporate sponsorship of $11,000. The article focuses on the brilliant engineering from the unlikely quartet, not the issues of immigration.
In “The Record Effect,” Alex Ross writes about how technology has transformed the sound of music. He delves way back to the days of the phonograph, a technology that was exciting for its time, but very limited in what the sounds it could reproduce. Pianos were muffled and violins were all but inaudible. The phonograph favored percussion and brass. Louis Armstrong’s trumpet seemed custom-made for the new gadget. Would Armstrong’s music have become mainstream without the phonograph? Ross examines each new technology all the way to today’s MP3s.
Then there’s David Bernstein’s story of the avant-garde sous-chef who is throwing out his pots and pans in favor of printing his delicacies on edible paper made of soybeans and cornstarch with a Canon i560 inkjet printer. Other topics include the Wikipedia explosion, e-mail spam and Google’s intent to scan the text of millions of books, which is opening up a whole new world of copyright issues.
While not all winners, most of the stories in this collection were enjoyable, with a majority coming from well-known sources such as The New York Times, Wired and The Washington Post, to name a few. These stories will remain relevant and insightful for several years to come. –Ken Davis
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