The Playful World Book

Are Furbies avatars of future pets? Mark Pesce, Chair of USC's Interactive Media Program and creator of VRML, thinks that technological development and recreational activity inform each other and are converging into a strange new immersive environment. The Playful World: Interactive Toys and the Future of Imagination is a thoughtful peek into the guts of toys like Lego Mindstorms and Sony's PlayStation 2; by extrapolation, Pesce sees them driving research in nanotechnology and virtual reality, but nobly refuses to succumb to the temptation to make precise predictions. Looking at the history of play and taking care to knock down whatever resistance we might have left to considering it less worthwhile than other activities, the book shows that play is a form of learning--perhaps the most natural form. Toy tech is catching up with current research very rapidly; many households have more powerful computers playing Crazy Taxi with the kids than working on budgets with parents. The presumption that we are creating new ways of learning, knowing, and being that are rapidly overtaking our means to understand and control them could be frightening if explored by an author less familiar with the technology and its users. Rather than "game over", Pesce says, we should get ready to "play again". --Rob LightnerRead More