In spite of my own reservations about Bing's ability to convert Google users, I have to admit that the search engine does offer a genuine alternative to Google-style browsing, a more coherently organized selection of links, and a more advertiser-friendly environment through which to sell space and links.

When digital culture first came along, it was supposed to create more time, by allowing us to shift time around. Somehow instead we've strapped devices to ourselves that ping us all the time.

The industrial age was not about craftspeople trading peer to peer. It was about stopping that. You weren't supposed to be a craftsperson, you were supposed to be an employee.

Google is in a position where it doesn't even have to strive to become a hip, conscious choice. Brands are temporary fads. Functionality is forever. Google just has to 'be,' and everyone will end up there sooner or later.

Beyond the hype, style, and speculation, the truth is that the iPad is really just another tablet device. A really big PDA, where a touchscreen does what a laptop's keyboard used to do.

Our enthusiasm for digital technology about which we have little understanding and over which we have little control leads us not toward greater agency, but toward less...We have surrendered the unfolding of a new technological age to a small elite who have seized the capability on offer. But while Renaissance kings maintained their monopoly over the printing press by force, today's elite is depending on little more than our own disinterest.

In the digital universe, our personal history and its sense of narrative is succeeded by our social networking profile - a snapshot of the current moment. The information itself - our social graph of friends and likes - is a product being sold to market researchers in order to better predict and guide our futures.