Everyone knows that today's rate of technological change is unprecedented. With technological breakthroughs from the Internet to cell phones to digital music and pictures, everyone knows that the social impact of technology has never been as profound. Future Hype surveys the past few hundred years to show that many of the technologies we now take for granted transformed society in far more dramatic ways than recent developments so often touted as unparalleled and historic. Seidensticker exposes the hidden costs of technology and will help both consumers and businesses take a shrewder position when the next 'essential' innovation is trotted out.