I read that book recently. It was alright, seemed a bit far-fetched to me, however. I mean, obviously we're moving along at a fast pace, but by the time just _some_ of us (let alone _all_) experience the author's projections we'll probably be in the real-life Star Trek era.
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/joseph-bates/2/853/aa3
And his company's patents,
http://patents.justia.com/assignee/singular-computing-llc
Ah, I get the name now. "The Singularity Is Near" came out in 2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Near