Fiche de lecture : "The Road Ahead" by Bill Gates

Résumé du document

(Fiche de lecture en anglais) In "The Road Ahead", Bill Gates explains why the Internet is revolutionising not just Microsoft but everything else too – and at a faster pace he had anticipated. He describes, very pragmatically, the implications for everybody of a world connected by interactive computer networks and tries to answer some basic questions like : How will our lives change? Will our jobs become obsolete? What about our children? What about privacy? How should we prepare?

Extraits

[...] The “Information is a term applied to period where movement of information became faster than physical movement.” The main characteristic of this period is the abundant publication, concumption and manipulation, especially by computers and computer networks. This period is more narrowly applied to the late 20th and early 21st century, post 1970. It is often used in conjunction with the term “post-industrial society”. This period is very often qualified as revolutionnary by Gates. But is the 1970's “Information such a revolution? And more precisely, has the Information Age really started in the 1970s? If we look closer into the history of technologies, we can see that the revolution of information started long before the Internet. [...]

[...] In the first part of the book dealing with his early years, we find out that Bill Gates was, unsuprisingly, a gifted child, quite advanced for his age, totally obsessed with computers and figures. In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman. While at Harvard, Gates developed the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair. In his junior year, Gates dropped out of Harvard to devote all his energy to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with Paul Allen. [...]

[...] Conclusion The Road Ahead is, first of all, an easy-to-read IT book, explaining in simple words how the computer technology will continue to affect our lives. It provides a good insight of the state of thinking at the time of publication and the euphoria that accompanied the development of the Internet. Bill Gates is obviously the most important character in the book. The story of this determined and persistent man who became the wealthiest man in 20 years is a true American story. [...]

[...] Gates' “revolution of the Internet” In The Road Ahead, Bill Gates gives a class of history of the Internet. We learn that the main networks forming today's Internet started out in 1969 as the ARPANET created by the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA). But the collective network - mainly used by the Army and university professors - only gained a public face in the 1990s. By 1996, the word “Internet” became a common public currency referring almost entirely to the World Wide Web. [...]

[...] The Internet, which was supposed to be a new public space favouring intercultural communication, is now a media totally devoted to business. Indeed, the description given by Bill Gates is basically economic. He does not speak about central issues like political participation (e-democracy), arts and new forms of culture on the Internet which can be seen as revolutionnary. I think the world described by Gates is far from being revolutionnary. [...]