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Becoming Virtual: Reality in the Digital Age
 
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Becoming Virtual: Reality in the Digital Age (Hardcover)

by Pierre Levy (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 207 pages
  • Publisher: Perseus Books,U.S.; illustrated edition edition (May 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0306457881
  • ISBN-13: 978-0306457883
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,035,164 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description
}"Virtual reality" is a phenomenon that captivates people of all ages and all levels of technical expertise. It appears on the Internet and in computer games, and is used, among other places, in high-tech software for doctors, engineers, and scientists. But, is it really something new? And how does it affect us?Examining the social and cultural impact of new digital technologies, Levy tackles the concept of "the virtual," demonstrating how it has always been an enduring component of the human mind. He shows how the body, the text, and the economy, are made virtual. He then reveals how the Internet and web sites are now transforming the virtual into a "collective intelligence" linked to digital communication.Succinct, accessible, and profound, Becoming Virtual is an intellectual tour de force from one of France's most brilliant young thinkers. }

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Very useful but very french, 28 Sep 2001
By mbrman@nethotel.dk (Copenhagen, Denmark) - See all my reviews
The most important thing to say to the prospective reader of this book is that Levy is a university professor from France... He doesn't refer to his sources, but assumes You know what he's talking about. I was very provoked by this and by the fact that the language use is so obtuse at times as to seem very much like 'Security by Obscurity" rather than something very clever, but hard to communicate.
However, if one perseveres and doesn't throw down the book in disgust with its self-glorifying attitude, it offers a set of distinctions that are useful to anyone working with digital media. Humanists, Programmers, Engineers and Marketing people alike will all find the constructs and insights provided to be very useful.
Particularly his distinctions between real and actual, possible and virtual (that it takes reading through the book to fully understand though) has proven to be very strong concepts to me both when teaching multimedia classes and when designing the interactive applications for the future.
His argument, that virtuality is a fundamental part of humanitys existence cuts right through a lot of the hype that's been surrounding digital media from the beginning. It provides a very useful baseline with which to evaluate the new virtualities we create - they are no longer so new and novel, but now we are allowed to better place them in their right perspective.
All in all, the book is now permanently in place on my 'must-read-list' to my students along with Norman, Nielsen and (Esa) Saarinen.
I losses one star solely because the language is so dense that it seems to be written back in the time when people actualluy had time to read books.
Michael Barner-Rasmussen (B.Sc. MA, Denmark)
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