Technology was supposed to be the servant of mankind — liberation would result from more technology. What World War One showed was how quickly this new technology could be put to use. In the end, it was the European idea of progress which became the victim of “improved technology.” The rules of warfare had changed — and with this change the 20th century plunged into what one historian has called, “the age of total war.”
.. Not outsiders but Europeans themselves invented the expression Age of Anxiety to describe what they thought was happening to them in the twentieth century. They dwelt increasingly not on the growing enlightenment of their times, as so many had done in the 18th and 19th centuries, nor on Europe’s continued greatness, but on the anxiety they felt about their existence, their culture, and their destiny. “Today,” said the Protestant theologian-philosopher Paul Tillich at mid-century, “it has become almost a truism to call our time an age of anxiety.” Tillich believed that anxiety infected even the greatest achievement of contemporary Europeans in literature, art, and philosophy. Europe, according to his account, had entered its third great period of anxiety, comparable in intensity to that of the ancient world and the Reformation.
The special form of anxiety that Tillich identified was the ANXIETY OF MEANINGLESSNESS. He traced it to the modern world’s loss of a spiritual center which could provide answers to the questions of the meaning of life.
The Liszt Sonota iPad App
What better opportunity to look at a recent iPad app, The Liszt Sonata? And, if you need further numerological justification, consider that his Sonata in B Minor turned a hundred and sixty this year: the date on the front page of Liszt’s manuscript is February 2, 1853.
Google Glass Review
A wearable computer will be more of an awareness device, noting what you’re doing and delivering alerts precisely when you need them, in sync with your other devices: when you’re near a grocery store, you will be told you’re low on vegetables, and an actual shopping list will be sent to your phone, where longer text is more easily read. Depending on your desire for more alerts, this could be regarded as either annoying or lifesaving. But as Libin puts it, “The killer app for this is hyperawareness.”
.. According to Steve Lee, the Glass design team “looked into facial-recognition technology early on” but chose not to pursue it. “Clearly, this is something the broader public is concerned about,” Lee says, “so we took the additional step of banning facial-recognition Glassware for Glass.” Realistically, Google can’t stop anyone committed to using such applications; install Linux, for example, and you can run any compatible software you want. Political thinkers have long warned that face-recognition software — deployed worldwide by police forces and spy agencies — will eventually go mainstream, with corporations and individuals scanning people in public, either to sell them things, track them or simply indulge their voyeuristic curiosity.