cover image The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move?

The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move?

Patrick Tucker. Penguin/Current, $27.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-59184-586-7

Every time we swipe a debit card or a subway card, activate our GPS, or post on Facebook from our phones, we leave an electronic trail for others to follow. According to the Futurist magazine’s deputy editor Tucker, each of us now creates 1.8 megabytes of data a year using our devices in such ways. Thanks to the wonders of telemetry—the transmission of measurements of data—we are now on the edge of a world in which individuals and collective agencies will be able to use our data to predict many aspects of our lives. In this fascinating and gripping book, Tucker illustrates how such predictive powers will tell us about our personal health before we know it and how that health will affect others, where and when a crime might happen and who might become a victim of a crime, and when you might fall in love. As much as we wish to retain our privacy, even when using these devices, the future in which we stand naked to the world is closer than we imagine, according to Tucker. (Apr.)