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Science 12 January 1979:
Vol. 203. no. 4376, pp. 143 - 147
DOI: 10.1126/science.203.4376.143
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Articles

Information: The Ultimate Frontier

Lewis M. Branscomb 1

1 Vice President and Chief Scientist, International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, New York 10504

Although long-term forecasting is best left to science fiction writers, scientists can illumine basic technological trends, as in the 100-year scenario presented here. Computers will continue the "small is beautiful" trend, but they are not likely to follow the semilog trail because extrapolation from the current base would lead to absurdities such as a computer cost of 3/100 of a cent. To achieve inexpensive high speed and Lilliputian size, new techniques are likely to replace silicon technology. The ultimate computer might be biological and patterned on DNA. Future computers will reacquire information when needed rather than store it, and we will see personalized products at mass production prices. Light wave communication will broaden communications exchange, but software that is more friendly to human users will be needed. By taking over knowledge distribution, electronic information systems will let universities concentrate on new knowledge. More importantly, they will expand everyone's right to information and free expression through the existing media system and to protection from misuse of information by others.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Rhetorically Acculturating the Computer as a Given of Society.
D. E. WILLIAMS (1988)
American Behavioral Scientist 32, 208-222
Coping with the STM literature: the changing reader 1983.
(1984)
Journal of Information Science 9, 33-36
   PDF »
2001: An information society?.
E. Garfield (1979)
Journal of Information Science 1, 209-215
   Abstract »    PDF »
Information science and scientists in 2001.
C. T. Meadow (1979)
Journal of Information Science 1, 217-222
   Abstract »    PDF »


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