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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
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Searching... | 30000004300913 | HC107.C2 G54 2005 | Open Access Book | Advance Management | Searching... |
Searching... | 30000004300871 | HC107.C2 G54 2005 | Open Access Book | Advance Management | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
Thanks to the digital technology revolution, cameras are everywhere--PDAs, phones, anywhere you can put an imaging chip and a lens. Battling to usurp this two-billion-dollar market is a Silicon Valley company, Foveon, whose technology not only produces a superior image but also may become the eye in artificially intelligent machines. Behind Foveon are two legendary figures who made the personal computer possible: Carver Mead of Caltech, one of the founding fathers of information technology, and Federico Faggin, inventor of the CPU--the chip that runs every computer.
George Gilder has covered the wizards of high tech for twenty-five years and has an insider's knowledge of Silicon Valley and the unpredictable mix of genius, drive, and luck that can turn a startup into a Fortune 500 company. The Silicon Eye is a rollicking narrative of some of the smartest--and most colorful--people on earth and their race to transform an entire industry.
Author Notes
George Gilder, the best-selling author of numerous books--including Telecosm, Microcosm, and The Spirit of Enterprise--also publishes the influential Gilder Technology Report. He lives in Tyringham, Massachusetts.
Reviews 3
Publisher's Weekly Review
Known for weaving engrossing stories from material knotted with numbing complexity, Gilder (Telecosm; Microcosm) delves once again into the world of high-tech business, this time focusing on the company Foveon and its efforts to develop a device that will allow digital machines to see as the human eye does. ?Computers can perform instantaneous calculus... and search the entire contents of the Library of Congress in a disk-drive database,? he writes. ?But they cannot see. Even today, recognizing a face glimpsed in a crowd across an airport lobby, two human eyes can do more image processing than all the supercomputers in the world put together.? The book traces a circuitous path in its investigation of Foveon?s ?silicon eye??leading through discussions of the magnetic codes on paper checks and of notebook computer touchpads?but Gilder is a competent, eloquent guide. Moreover, the journey is populated with richly limned characters like Dick Merrill, who, with ?[w]ire-rim glasses, long white coat, electromagnetic blond hair, a bright feral glint in his skyblue eyes,? resembles Doc Brown from the Back to the Future films, and Michelle Mahowald, who decorates her lab walls with ?artsy-dispsy posters? and releases ?random analog beasts of prey from their safe digital cages.? While some readers will find Foveon?s saga half-fulfilled, Gilder sees its fulfillment as inevitable. ?Foveon,? he writes, ?can do for the camera what Intel did for the computer: Reduce it to a chip and make it ubiquitous.? Whether or not readers are believers by the end of this narrative, the ride is electric. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Booklist Review
Gilder, author and knowledgeable Silicon Valley insider, tells the fascinating tale of Caltech's Carver Mead, his influences and associates. They sparked a revolution that aims to supplant the digital eyes of our cameras and high-tech phones with a silicon eye based on a human model; theirs is the first imager in cameras based on the serious study of the human retina and neural system, called the Foveon X3. The author traces the 20-year journey of Mead, his team, and their company, Foveon, as they create a new age combining the digital and biological world, aiming to make all current computers, cameras, and cell phones obsolete. They expect the Foveon device to evolve into functioning in some way both as an eye and as a brain. Gilder observes, Foveon will do for the camera what Intel did for the computer: Reduce it to a chip and make it ubiquitous. Dismantle it and disperse it across the network. Render it wireless, wanton, and waste-able. --Mary Whaley Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Publisher of the Gilder Technology Report newsletter (tracking "new breakthroughs stemming from paradigms of technological progress that are reshaping the global economy"), Gilder covers familiar territory in this book-silicon chip making-while introducing the people who helped develop the Foveon camera, a new high-resolution camera technology that is modeled on the human eye. While he chronicles the development of the camera with an insider's knowledge of Silicon Valley, he never fully succeeds in drawing the reader into the story; he is so intent on profiling each player that the narrative gets lost in a collection of anecdotal tales. Not helping matters is the prevalence of science and technology jargon and acronyms that only readers with advanced degrees would be comfortable reading. A glossary is included, but it offers little relief. The final chapters focus on the influence that Gilder believes Foveon technology will have on computers and other devices. His audience appears to be Silicon Valley insiders as well as investors who will be interested in this new technology. For only the most specialized technology and business collections.-Colleen Cuddy, NYU Sch. of Medicine Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
