Cycling in London on a Boris bike, the Lynskey Sportive at home (Melbourne) and a Velib in Paris. Too hot in Florida (and too busy attending InfoSec World 2018) and too cold (and too busy at the DNC and elsewhere) in Washington, DC (snowing!)
My preferred definitions of technology are those of Alan Kay and Danny Hillis. According to Kay, technology is “is anything that was invented after you were born.” Hillis goes a bit further and says, “Technology, is everything that doesn’t work yet.” Once something works reliably it becomes invisible: it’s no longer technology. Kevin Kelly covers all this much better at The Technium.
Similarly, cyber security has flexible definitions because it involves people interacting with technology. These will be explored in later posts.
This will all be revised once I absorb the views in W. Brian Arthur’s book – The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves. Arthur’s work shifts focus from the individual genius or disruptive personalities to the underlying processes of technological evolution. Innovation is less about singular visionaries and more about the recombination of existing technologies.
Arthur’s theory helps explain why technological change is accelerating and why it often outpaces regulatory, ethical, or social frameworks — a dynamic at the core of current debates about the power and responsibility of tech billionaires.