Vannevar Bush's idea of the Memex was revolutionary to say the least. He valued the process of information organization, an idea that would inspire the technology of today. In particular, he focused on the idea of "building a trail" between different articles, ideas, or other pieces of information. Today, we come to utilize this concept through hypertext. I also found it interesting that Bush imagined the kind of people who would own the Memex. In the article 'As We May Think,' he categorizes a user as one who "builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him," In essence, Memex users would value information for the sake of knowledge and embody Bush's idea of one convenient storage unit.
When I searched "Memex" on Google, I found many things. Among the first articles relating to Bush or the Memex was a website called MemexSim dedicated to for a project, called the Memex Simulator, dedicated to making Bush's groundbreaking idea into a reality using modern technology. I also found a link to a Linked In page for a computer software company called Memex. I searched YouTube and found many videos with Memex in the title, but not many were actually related. In fact, online the first video proved to be a relevant result as it displayed an animation of Bush's designs.
If the Memex were to be in existence today, I feel it would function as an inspirations for technologies like the Kindle, allowing its users access to a countless number of books. Through this assignment, I have come to realize two things. First, this idea represents society's innate tendency to search for "the next big thing"; whether it be a technological advancement or a convenient consumer innovation, we have been curious to push ourselves to the limit in order to create new products or services. The Memex embodies such a mindset through its design qualities. Second, I began to wonder: where would we be technologically if this design had come to fruition? If the knowledge and technology had been available and had the Memex been created (indicating a much earlier start to technology's influence over society) how advanced would our world be? With his idea of the Memex, it is clear that Bush had a revolutionary thought process and a note-worthy interest in innovation.
1 comment:
Cat, You had some really interesting observations and questions. I really liked how you made the connection between the part about "building a trail" and hypertext like we talked about in Critical Internet Studies.
I think it is interesting that there is not much about the Memex on YouTube, but that also makes sense, because this was a technology proposed so long ago.
You also had interesting insights about what it would be like if the Memex were around today, and it's relation to information technologies like the Kindle. You made really good points about how ideas of technologies like the Memex fit into society, and I have also wondered what it would be like if this idea wasn't popularized. Would it have had any affect on the development of future technologies? Or would everything be the same?
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