"A child born on the first day of the new millennium will live an entire lifetime in a world undreamt of just a generation ago. As much as we might have tried to speculate upon the shape of things to come, the twenty-first century arrives just as uninformed as a newborn. We know this much: some of our future dreams have failed to appear-space travel remains a luxury for the few wealthy governments of the world-while others, such as the revolutions in information and communications, have exceeded everyone's most passionate fantasies. Space has been replaced by cyberspace, rockets by routers."

     In this book, Pesce comes across as a kid in a candy store giving a "state of the union" address. He describes new toys that are on the cutting edge of technology; detailing their development, the hype surrounding their release, and the fate of these technological wonders. The detailed descriptions of the toys, and their inner workings, leads one to believe that Pesce has spent more than a few dollars on these technological wonders for himself. Through this book, you can see Pesce's Bias towards the good in technology. Pesce does not discuss any bad sides of technology at all. Even with this bias, the book remains a "State of the Union" address: Here is what is new and hot, and why it is hot.

     Anyone who was over 4 yrs old at Christmas in 1998 remembers the "Christmas Fad" of the Furby. Pesce details the development of this toy, which turned out to be so much more than a standard toy. "The Furby is the best example of a new class of toys-reacting, verbal, and engaging." Pesce describes the Furby from a technological angle; describing how it uses motors and chips to give the impression of life. He chronicles the predecessors of Furby from Teddy Ruxpin to virtual pet key chains.

     Pesce also spends a good deal of time discussing the Playstation 2, and how it revolutionized the gaming industry. Pesce here demonstrates his "kid in the candy store" complex the best by spending pages discussing the hype surrounding the Playstation 2. He begins at its predecessor, the Playstation, and then describes the May 1999 first viewing of the Playstation 2 at the Electronic Entertainment Exposition (EEE); the most prominent video gaming exposition in the US. Pesce then goes on to tell the story of the February 14, 2000 Playstation 2 Pre-order website that took in 100,000 orders in the first minute, before it crashed, and the Japanese release which saw all 700,000 Playstation2's bought in the first hour, in addition to the 800,000 pre-ordered ones. One would almost think Pesce works for Sony's Public Relations department.

     Pesce also discusses the downright weird aspects of the technological frontier. He references the website http://ouija.berkeley.com, which offers up to 20 people the chance to play the Ouija game by simultaneously controlling a real Ouija "planchette" stationed at Berkeley over the internet using their mouse.

     As you can see, the content in this book is very up to date. in a sense. It discusses events that are only just 2 years old. Pesce's book shows us that a generation ago, the things we see now could never have been dreamed of, but the reverse side of this coin is also true. The new technologies popular just last year, that he is so enthusiastic about, are simply yesterday's news, and are nothing spectacular to people now. The problem with being on the cutting edge of technology is that it is cutting; the old is left behind, and the new becomes old before you realize it was new. The problem with the content is that, in the very near future (if not already), his enthusiasm towards these "technological marvels" will not be understood. It is for this reason that, although I would recommend this book to people interested in the technological frontier, I believe the content will be so out of date in 2 years that it would not be beneficial to a Computers and Society class.