stevenberlinjohnson

I’m Steven Johnson, author of 13 books, most recently Extra Life. Host of the PBS series Extra Life and How We Got To Now and the podcast American Innovations. Email newsletter: adjacentpossible.substack.com. For speaking inquiries contact wesn at leigh bureau dot com.

Steven Johnson in stevenberlinjohnson

Dec 13, 2023

Writing At The Speed Of Thought

Announcing the U.S. launch of NotebookLM: personalized AI grounded in the information you trust…

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Steven Johnson in stevenberlinjohnson

Oct 8, 2021

A New Beginning

A new email newsletter on the past and future of innovation, and an online course…

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Steven Johnson in stevenberlinjohnson

Sep 8, 2023

Introducing The Infernal Machine

A new book about dynamite, anarchism, and the birth of the…

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Steven Johnson in stevenberlinjohnson

Jun 30, 2007

Apple: Consumer Unfriendly

What a bizarre Joe Nocera Times piece about the lack of a removable battery in the iPhone. The key question:

One thing I wanted to know was why Apple had made a cellphone without a removable battery in the first place; it seemed like such an extreme act of…

Steven Johnson in stevenberlinjohnson

Mar 8, 2004

Sendmail Blues

One of things that I noticed traveling around on my book tour last month was that the increased availability of high-bandwidth connections — whether cable modems in the hotel room, or wi-fi in Starbucks and airports — has created a new kind of annoyance that wasn’t an issue when we were mostly using…

Steven Johnson in stevenberlinjohnson

May 11, 2006

Can We Please Kill This Meme Now

Jason linked to this op-ed on the “endangered joy of serendipity”:

Serendipity is defined as the ability to make fortunate discoveries accidentally. There’s so much of modern life that makes it preferable to the vaunted good old days — better…

Steven Johnson in stevenberlinjohnson

Dec 19, 2002

The other two towers

Jeff Jarvis was a lot closer to ground zero than I was on 9/11, and ever since he’s been one of the most passionate and articulate writers about that day and its aftermath, but I think he’s partly wrong about the new designs for the WTC site. To my eye, they are a vast improvement over the…

Steven Johnson in stevenberlinjohnson

Jul 3, 2007

Emerging Technology June 2003

Originally published in Discover Magazine, June 1, 2003

Pearson Education Measurement, which scores more than 40 million
student achievement tests each year, announced in February that it
would begin using computers…

Steven Johnson in stevenberlinjohnson

May 6, 2008

Go Buy Microcosm Right Now!

Carl Zimmer may be my favorite science writer around today (others seem to agree), so I’m excited to report that his new book Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life hit the shelves yesterday. I had the opportunity to read it in manuscript form, and it’s really an…

Steven Johnson in stevenberlinjohnson

Feb 28, 2007

Multitouch Everywhere!

Jay Haynes pointed me to a wild piece on Ars about the future of Pro Tools, citing the latest batch of Apple rumors. The piece is mostly focused on Apple’s plans for its music creation software, but boy does it bury the lede:

Basically the rumor is this: There…

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stevenberlinjohnson

I’m Steven Johnson, author of 13 books, most recently Extra Life. Host of the PBS series Extra Life and How We Got To Now and the podcast American Innovations. Email newsletter: adjacentpossible.substack.com. For speaking inquiries contact wesn at leigh bureau dot com.

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