If you're half-way involved with your Mac you already know that you HAVE to buy two magazines, MacWorld and MacUser, if only as a defensive play. They keep you abreast of the software and hardware. If your involvement approaches the obsessional, you'll add another: MacWeek. That one plugs you into the industry itself. (But you've got to tell some shameful lies to get it, and lately they've been harder to convince that you run a consulting company with two dozen Macs on stream.)
Well, here's a new magazine that doesn't compete for the same turf as the Big Three but which you may find just as necessary to your happiness. "WIRED" is a new bi-monthly that's been selling out so quickly you'll probably have a hard time finding it on your newstand. It claims to celebrate “the Digital Generation’s ascendancy to power” and in its manifesto declares that it “is here not to report on technology, but on the meaning and context of the revolution sweeping the planet at the cusp of the new millenium.”
Well.
After all the heavy breathing, what we have here is a magazine that reads like a cross between The Economist and a New Age diary. At its best it is informative and intriguing -- and at its worst it lapses into artsy-fartsy cutesy-fruitsy prose and layout that attempts to substitute smarts for insights.
Luckily, its best makes it an event to look forward to in your mailbox.
As you might suspect, WIRED is published in San Francisco but draws from an eclectic group of authors. The current issue’s lead is by Steven Levy, a name familiar to Macworld readers. He tackles one of the thornier issues in the new Digital Age -- privacy.
We’re fast approaching the stage where much of our lives, private and public, will be digitized. Not only our cellular phones, but our bank accounts and charge accounts, and the whole trail of what used to be paper is becoming a stream of 1’s and 0’s and posing the question: who will have access? The sub issue is that now that so much commerce gets conducted over the wire, how do I know that the digital contract you just sent me is really from you? In the fast-receding past, I could rely on your signature -- but can you give me a digital signature?
It turns out that you can, and that you and I can use that same technology not only to electronically fingerprint our data but also to ensure that our digits are private and safe from unwelcome eyes and ears. The answer lies in advanced cryptography, software so powerful that only those we designate can unlock our messages and data.
But -- surprise! -- Someone Out There with a very large stick is trying to ensure that unbreakable cryptography never gets into our hands. Our Government, that’s who. You see, if you and I can use software to make our data REALLY private, just think what would happen if such technology got into the hands of terrorists, drug dealers, and other things that go bump in the night? So the Government, “our” Government, is doing its utmost to legislate an outcome in which encryption technology is deliberately “dumbed down” so as to enable any of those agencies which protect us -- the FBI, the CIA, you-name-it -- to peek into whatever part of our lives might interest them. There! Doesn’t that make you feel safe and cosy?
Levy reports on a band of “Crypto Rebels” or Cypherpunks now doing their utmost to ensure that the best technology DOES get into our hands. It’s a useful tale, and an example of WIRED at its instructive (and entertaining) best.
Then there’s a revealing look at the current passion for a national technology policy, orchestrated by Washington. Enthusiasts for such state intervention usually point to alleged European government successes in this arena -- but John Browning, onetime Economist correspondent, paints a different picture which he sums up in his title “Eurotechnopork.”
“Memo to Bill Clinton: Europeans have a lot of experience with governments tinkering with technology policy. Bad experience... Surveying the history of Europe’s technology policies, the obvious question for Clinton is: How could so many bright Europeans work so hard for so long and create so many screw ups? The answer is that making decisions about technology is just not something that Governments are naturally good at...”
It turns out that WIRED is edited by Macs, but that allegiance doesn’t prevent them issuing an ominous warning. It comes from Frederic Davis, former editor in chief of MacUser, who delves into the alliance between Apple and IBM and concludes that this joint research is about to spell the end of BOTH the Mac and OS2. Apple/IBM’s joint venture, Taligent, is working feverishly on a new operating system, codenamed Pink, that “makes the Macintosh and OS/2 obsolete... because [IBM and Apple] have so much to lose, they’ve created the Big Lie. The Big Lie holds that [pink] is only in the concept stage and that any implementation is years away. In fact, just the opposite is true...”
Davis goes on to say: “Despite a surge in Macintosh sales, a recent survey of large corporations indicates that an overwhelming 92 percent plan to center their future computer use on Intel’s 486 and Pentium chips. Realizing that the Macintosh can never prevail against the dominance of Intel-architecture systems, Apple is gradually phasing out the Mac. [Pink] on the other hand, is designed to run directly on Intel systems.
“The Mac III systems expected from Apple later this year will be the last family in the Macintosh product line...”
Davis’s suggestion is that Apple intends to become a more software-oriented company. Is he right? It’s hard to believe as we watch the torrent of new machines gush from Cupertino, but there’s no gainsaying the fact that Apple and IBM have spent an awful lot of money on that new joint venture. Why?
All in all, WIRED provides a feast for thought. It’s also entertaining. My only cavil is its layout. There’s a relentless trendiness on every page and sometimes it manages to get in the way of comprehension: some articles are almost impossible to read, with the text swooping and swirling around the page in an effort to impress the reader.
For instance, Steven Levy’s article on Cyberpunks in printed in 6 point type and --worse -- over a background of drab plue and dusty pink patches. Nothing less than an attempt to sabotage these fifty-plus eyes. Not surprisingly, the preamble to WIRED says: “Reader surveys [indicate] that you are young - 75% are under 41...”
It says a lot for WIRED that this chronologically challenged reader decided anyway to send in his twenty bucks and subscribe. Not a bad price for a bi-monthly fix of leading edge information -- even after you add the cost of a stronger reading bulb.
