Technophiles unhappy over how the tech revolution has played out

Washington

ASTRA Taylor's iPhone has a cracked screen. She has bandaged it with clear packing tape and plans to use the phone until it disintegrates. She objects to the planned obsolescence of today's gadgetry, and to the way that the big tech companies pressure customers to upgrade.

Ms Taylor, 36, is a documentary filmmaker, musician and political activist. She is also an emerging star in the world of technology criticism. She is not paranoid, but she keeps duct tape over the camera lens on her laptop computer - because, as everyone knows, these gadgets can be taken over by nefarious agents of all kinds.

Ms Taylor is a 21st century digital dissenter. She is one of the many technophiles unhappy about the way that the tech revolution has played out. Political progressives once embraced the utopian promise of the Internet as a democratising force, but they have been dismayed by the rise of the "…