Futuristic Forecast of Tools and Technologies

How many of the common high-tech products we use today were once nothing more than products from the fertile minds of science fiction writers many decades earlier? Indeed, technological progress has been turning fiction into fact from the earliest days of computing. In this section, the featured essayists ponder future generations of tools and technologies, and as fictional as they may sound today, there is a basis of fact in their forecasts. Imagine a time when the network is the world and the world is the network. A time when networked devices and mechanisms are so deeply embedded into daily lives that the only time they may ever be noticed, says Jim Waldo, is when they are not working. "Imagine smelling pictures and tasting video," asks Ramesh Jain. Yes, just imagine. . .