The New Digital Age

Written by two leading thinkers, this widely anticipated book describes a new, hugely connected world of the future, full of challenges and benefits which are ours to meet and harness. The New Digital Age is the product of an unparalleled collaboration. It is full of the brilliant insights of one of Silicon Valley's great innovators: what Bill Gates was to Microsoft and Steve Jobs was to Apple, Schmidt (along with Larry Page and Sergey Brin) was to Google. Co-author Jared Cohen, the Director of Google Ideas who was formerly an advisor to both Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, makes an equally compelling contribution to the debate.

Never before has the future been so vividly and transparently imagined. Schmidt and Cohen explore the technologies that will change lives: information systems that greatly increase productivity, safety and our quality of life, thought-controlled motion technology that can revolutionise medical procedures, and near-perfect translation technology that allows us to have more diversified interactions. They also contemplate our most important future considerations: looking at how we curate our online identity and fight those who would do harm with it; examining the widespread political change that will transform the globe, through a new wave of cyber-terrorism and states operating simultaneously in the physical and virtual realms; and also cover the ever-present threats to our privacy and security.

This is a breakthrough book: Schmidt and Cohen outline in great detail and scope all the promise and peril awaiting us in the coming decades in a pragmatic, inspirational and totally fascinating way. Whether a government, a business or an individual, we must understand technology if we want to understand the future.