Techno-Prophets

I thought I would share a post that I made in my ETEC 540 course.  The readings were based on the “origin and Nature of Hypertext”.  This was a posting I shared today:

As I was reading about the “memex” discussed by Bush (1945) and the potential devices he discussed I couldn’t help thinking of today’s devices. The smartphones and tablets as perfect realizations for his prediction of personal devices for storing and working with data. I keep being blown away by the technology prophets that were so bang on with their predictions of the future. It makes me wonder if predictions by individuals like Kurzweil will actually come true.

I also loved Nelson’s (1999) discussion on the “Two Parody Views of Copyright”. He discusses the two camps, pro and anti copyright. I love his statement, ” I would gladly live in a world without copyright,”. he goes on to say that it is not likely to happen. Which I agree with both statements. I do wonder though if copyright will eventually disappear if society: continues to push for collaboration, accepts works that are ripped/mixed/and mashed, and the impact of technology that continues to provide easier ways to share information. At some point will the original copyright holder become lost in the shuffle? I can see how those with money to lose will cling to this idea…but I do like the philosophy behind the CopyLeft movement and Creative Commons. This also seems similar to the “transcopyright system” discussed by Nelson (1999).

Ken

Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. The Atlantic Monthly, 176(1), 101–108. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush

Nelson, T. (1999). “Xanalogical structure, needed now more than ever: Parallel documents, deep links to content, deep versioning and deep re-use.” Available:
http://www.cs.brown.edu/memex/ACM_HypertextTestbed/papers/60.html

http://creativecommons.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft