The soft edge [electronic resource] : a natural history and future of the information revolution / Paul Levinson.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-241) and index.

Introduction -- The first digital medium -- The printed authorship of the modern world -- The age of photography and the ageless image -- Telegraphy -- Telephone -- Electricity -- Radio -- Survival of the media fit -- Remedial media -- Word processing and its masters -- The online author as publisher and bookstore -- Hypertext and author/reader inversions -- The open Web and its enemies -- Twentieth-Century screens -- Paper futures -- Electronic watermarks -- Artificial intelligence in real life -- You can't touch that in cyberspace.

Print version record.

The Soft Edge is a one-of-a-kind history of the information revolution. In his lucid and direct style, Paul Levinson, historian and philosopher of media and communications, gives us more than just a history of information technologies. The Soft Edge is a book about theories on the evolution of technology, the effects that human choice has on this (r)evolution, and what's in store for us in the future. Paul Levinson's engaging voice guides us on a tour that explains how communications media have been responsible for major developments in history and for profound chang.