as we may think

Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" predicts some of the great advances that the personal computer has allowed in the recent past. It's truely interesting that what he predicted, and dreamed of happening we now take for granted. Bush asks:
"Will there be dry photography? It is already here in two forms. When Brady made his Civil War pictures, the plate had to be wet at the time of exposure. Now it has to be wet during development instead. In the future perhaps it need not be wetted at all. There have long been films impregnated with diazo dyes which form a picture without development, so that it is already there as soon as the camera has been operated. An exposure to ammonia gas destroys the unexposed dye, and the picture can then be taken out into the light and examined. The process is now slow, but someone may speed it up, and it has no grain difficulties such as now keep photographic researchers busy. Often it would be advantageous to be able to snap the camera and to look at the picture immediately."
What he is talking about is obviously what we now call a digital camera. the proccess of "developing" is now instant. the bility to "snap the camera and to look at the picture immediately" now comes standard on all digital cameras.
Another prediction he makes is how we "make the record"
"To make the record, we now push a pencil or tap a typewriter. Then comes the process of digestion and correction, followed by an intricate process of typesetting, printing, and distribution. To consider the first stage of the procedure, will the author of the future cease writing by hand or typewriter and talk directly to the record? He does so indirectly, by talking to a stenographer or a wax cylinder; but the elements are all present if he wishes to have his talk directly produce a typed record. All he needs to do is to take advantage of existing mechanisms and to alter his language."
He speaks of the word processors we now use almost daily. We "correct" "print" and even "distribute" instantly with the technology we have now. After I am finished writing this for instance I will instantly distribubte it to anyone in the world who wants to read it.
He also predicts the form of which we hold information:
"This process, however, is simple selection: it proceeds by examining in turn every one of a large set of items, and by picking out those which have certain specified characteristics. There is another form of selection best illustrated by the automatic telephone exchange. You dial a number and the machine selects and connects just one of a million possible stations. It does not run over them all. It pays attention only to a class given by a first digit, then only to a subclass of this given by the second digit, and so on; and thus proceeds rapidly and almost unerringly to the selected station. It requires a few seconds to make the selection, although the process could be speeded up if increased speed were economically warranted. If necessary, it could be made extremely fast by substituting thermionic-tube switching for mechanical switching, so that the full selection could be made in one one-hundredth of a second. No one would wish to spend the money necessary to make this change in the telephone system, but the general idea is applicable elsewhere."
The process we now use, the internet, and such engines as wikipedia, actually surpass what he imagined. The process of finding information and using it is instant.
The technology we now use is necesary to our progress and current living status. One could say we take what we have for granted, but really we are just evolving to be more profecciant. Our comminication is no longer just to our family, or close freinds, or community, or country, we now communicate with the entire world directly, and listen to it directly. the ability to exchange ideas and news and notes and thoughts is as easy as it has ever been, and somehow it will continue to get easier. If anything we should embrace this new techology. After all Bush writes, that what are we doing but interperating the world with electrical signals anyways.
"In the outside world, all forms of intelligence whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs. Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness."
all quotes taken from Vannevar Bush "As We May Think"