Issue 1.01 - May 1995
"The medium, or process, of our time - electric technology - is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and re-evaluate practically every thought, every action, and ever institution formerly taken for granted. Everything is changing... you, your family, your education, your neighbourhood, your government, your job, your relation to "the others". And they're changing dramatically."
-Marshall McLuhan
Features
His "Rights of Man" was a clarion call for universal democracy. His "Common Sense" inspired Americans to independence. He died 186 years ago. So why should Thomas Paine be the patron saint of the age of information? Jon Katz on an old hero for a new era
Pattie Maes believes software agents are ready for primetime. By Scott Berkun
François Mitterrand had declared war on Mickey, Madonna and American culture. Bad news François, Mickey's winning. John Andrews reports from the front
Alan Turing reckoned that if a computer could talk like a human being it deserved to be called intelligent. Charles Platt reports on a competition to determine the most human computer, even as he worries that he may be the least human human.
James Lovelock, the father of Gaia, has seen the planet's past - and its future. By Robert Leedham
How Viacom is leveraging its brand strength to create the first 21st century (new) media company. John Battelle reports
Departments
Techno-lust
Liberation Technology and the future of democracy
Electrosphere
By Sadie Plant
By Andrew Leonard
By Peter Hinssen
By Rogier van Bakel
What Have We Got to Lose?