This past summer, I got to read two papers on the Internet and more quaintly they were titled “Man-Computer Symbiosis” and “The Computer as a Communication Device”. http://memex.org/licklider.pdf. The common link for the two papers was the author Dr J.C.R Licklider. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._R._Licklider The first paper was published in 1960 and the second in 1968.
My reaction at first when I got the two white papers was that they would put me to sleep. I was wrong. These papers were written in a simple and elegant way that endeared me to appreciate the premise of the two papers. Even more remarkable was the vision of the two papers. Beyond the technical vision of the applications was a section in the second paper that simply titled “Who can afford it”. It went on to discuss the concept of “on line” communities and said what good is it if it cannot be afforded by all. The papers did end on an optimistic tone that effectively predicted the need for a “Moore’s law” and its extension into Communication [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law ] . Worth noting that Gordon Moore had not conceived of Intel yet.
Many if not all the technical visions of this paper and others projects from the early days of the Internet have been realized at least at one layer. One may even argue that the promise to make the technology within economic reach of the urban global citizen has been realized.
The fact remains that there is a vast swath of rural America and the developing world that is yet to understand and fulfill the promised “Man-Computer Symbiosis” and get to see what we know as “The Computer as a Communication Device”.
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