The Machine

According to Vannevar Bush, “Science has provided the swiftest communication between individuals; it has provided a record of ideas and has enabled man to manipulate and make extracts from that record so that knowledge evolves and endures throughout the life of a race rather than that of an individual.” Bush predicts that science will continue evolving and will provide faster communication between people. He states that in the future, the Encyclopoedia Britannica will be reduced to the volume of a matchbox. A library of a million volumes could be compressed into one end of a desk and millions of people can have access to it. Machines with interchangeable parts will be constructed with great economy of effort. In spite of much complexity, they will perform reliably. The world will arrive at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it... A future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library that stores ones books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It will act as an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory. In one end is the stored material. Personal files and business correspondence are obtained and dropped into one place. And there is provision for direct entry. On the top is a transparent platen. On this are placed longhand notes, photographs, memoranda, and all sorts of other things. Kevin Kelly believes that we have come to that age and are already preparing ourselves for the future.
Kevin Kelly states in his speech, “The Next 5000 days of the Internet” that in the last 10 years, amazing technological advancements in science have been made. With the emergence of the Web, we now virtually have all of the information we would ever need right at our fingertips. According to Kelly, everything will be connected to one machine, and that one machine will be connected to the Internet. The Internet will be something that we are surrounded by and always connected to. From our clothes to our cars and the groceries we buy, everything will have access to the Internet. Kelly claims that society will have to give up personalization to be transparent. Just like the alphabet, we will learn to adapt to the Internet in our lives and make it seem normal over time. The next 5000 days will be smarter. Our computer’s operating systems will know us. It will know what our favorite sites are and will recommend more information based on our opinions, thus making us more transparent. Kelly predicts that we will be right in the middle of the Internet. It will become a part of our lives everywhere.