The Expected WorldEXPIRES: 1980
WRITTEN: 1945-07
Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, 'memex' will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.
Written: 1945-07
Addressed to: the foreseeable future
Source: "As We May Think
Author: Vannevar Bush
Category: Technology
Annotation
Bush's memex is widely cited as the conceptual ancestor of the personal computer and the World Wide Web. The description — a personal device storing all one's information, consultable with speed and flexibility — is a precise description of a smartphone with cloud storage. Bush imagined it running on microfilm; the mechanism was wrong but the function was exact.
What Actually Happened
Personal computers arrived in the 1980s, the World Wide Web in 1991, and smartphones by 2007. The functional memex is now carried by billions of people.
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