Monday, October 20, 2014

Over the Weekend: Memex

After reading the articles by Vannevar Bush, I was surprised that Bush had been so accurate about his prediction about Memex, and how close it is to what our Memex nowadays is: the WWW. After  searching the word "Memex" on google I came across a article written by DARPA  in February 2014 that talked about a new project they are launching called the Memex project.  This was the first thing that caught my attention because the word that Bush coined in 1945 is still being used today in 2014.
The Memex project is tasked with the goal of creating a new search engine that better suits military purposes.  The current search engines of today are mainly geared towards consumers and not that useful for the military. So there goal is to revolution that technology in a way that fits the military's needs.
They said the reason they are calling this the Memex project is because they want it to be a forward looking idea. Similar to the way Bush's idea for the Memex was forward looking. It talks about how Bush's idea of saving people's notes and being able to cross reference them in one area led to some of the biggest breakthroughs of the last seven decades. Such as online encyclopedias, hypertext, search engines, and the beginning of the internet.
I found this article very interesting and a great testament to Bush. After reading Bush's articles it is very clear that his findings and ideas helped us to get to where we are today. Without him we may not have Google, or the iPhone, or many other things. The fact that DARPA is willing to name a project after his findings also shows how much influence and respect he had in the technology industry. 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Tina! First I am impressed by your article because I did not know that the Memex has been originally designed for the military purpose. I also agree with you on that the idea of the Memex considerably contributed to the internet and other social medias nowdays based on the article I found.