Smartphones: The cultural, individual and technical processes that make them smart

Has there ever been an invention so integral to our lives, and so intimate, as the smartphone? Yet they are slippery things. Smartphones are both a step change in the ability of human beings to communicate with each other and become informed, and a new point of vulnerability to penetration by the outside world. They are at once talismans of our freedom and connectivity and tokens of the corporations who collect our data and impinge on our privacy.