In a 1991 Scientific American article, the influential computer scientist Mark Weiser predicted a coming era of “ubiquitous computing,” operating as seamlessly in the background as the electric motors in a modern car. “The most profound technologies are those that disappear,” he wrote. “They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”With his invocation of seamlessness, weaving and fabric, Weiser nodded, probably unconsciously, toward a far older, equally ubiquitous and rarely...

Source: Wall Street Journal October 23, 2020 14:03 UTC