Epcot Vacuums - Part 1

As I sat watching Futurama, I couldn't help but consider the possible, yet strange, parallel to our own future. The main characters had found themselves trapped on a planet of barbarian women who were controlled by a man-hating computer. We can cut out most of the content there and pick out the key phrase which sparked the chain of thoughts: "controlled by a computer."

As our lives are more and more hijacked by networked computing, we fail to recognize the transcendant moment when we are no longer capable of making our own decisions and the harnessed power of the worlds billions becomes both our consciousness and our free will. Truly a hard concept to contain for more than a few seconds as if our primitive minds are not capable of recognizing a manufactured alien intelligence as it emerges before us.

These foggy descriptions either leave much to your imagination or to your complete dismissal. But whatever it may be, the picture can become much more clear in referencing current and and soon to be trends on everybody's favorite pal...

LA INTERNET!

Right now there are a few paths emerging on this interthing (some well established, some not): social networking, search, identity management, trusted user-generated content, and user targeting.

Some services associated with these terms are: Wikipedia, Myspace, Google, Digg, AdSense, your favorite Proxy, and many many many others.

In part two, we will discuss how computers of tomorrow, user anonymity, and a powerful form or data mining, will give the you a powerful 'answer machine' with the ability to tell you everything you want to know about Salvador Dali, what foods are statistically better for your grandma, or if it's safe to cross the street right this second.

I'm serious, right now.

Stop reading.