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"I can't tell whether or not there's going to be a Singularity. I don't really believe the rapture of the nerds stereotype..."
- Charles Stross
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| Autosecretary (Autosec) | ||
| A software agent able to accept your query and then seach the public net for related information. |
Interesting pre-search engine idea of how to make sense of a global information network.
| Her autosec flashed the queue of her clipping program... a backlog of fifteen thousand headlines culled from news services and Net-zines in every time zone. She flushed everything having to do with the accident, and the tally dropped below a hundred. Those she might scan later, to catch up with what was happening in the world. |
| Technovelgy from Earth,
by David Brin. Published by Bantam in 1990 Additional resources -
|
Here's another bit:
Brin takes a backseat to the venerable Arthur C. Clarke for the general idea, though: see the Personal Interest Profile from Clarke's 1978 novel The Fountains of Paradise.
...was the die-off just a local "adjustment," restricted to south Texas? A few words to her autosecretary would send a ferret program forth to fetch the truth in milliseconds. But then, what good would knowing do? The Net was such a vast sea of information, sipping from it sometimes felt like trying to slake your thirst from a fire hose.
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'If the biological robots were not living creatures, they were certainly very good imitations.'
"Everybody and his dog, it seemed, wanted to live out in the country; transportation and communication were no longer isolating factors."
'... the new typewriter that could be talked to, and which transposed the spoken sound into typed words.'
'... underneath they consisted of networks of cooling tubes against the skin.'
'My cars talk to one another. I have no doubt about it...'
'... the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell.'
