Posted by dropseven on January 19, 2002 at 14:24:56:
Computers are a control technology. They allow us to create, manipulate and control data events. The spread of computers throughout our society fundamentally affects the distribution of controlling power and the effects attributed to the computer-induced control revolution could not be more different.
In the meantime computers have wandered from air-conditioned rooms onto desktops, laptops and palmtops. Each step has been accompanied by an increase in computing power, a decrease in costs and a proliferation of users and uses. Since the early 1990s the pace at which computers have been interconnected has accelerated dramatically. A stand-alone computer now seems almost strange. Along the way, a new mass medium, the Internet, has emerged symbolising the second wave of the control revolution. What was once a privilege of large organisations ‚ control over information flows ‚ has been decentralised and distributed. Interconnected and in everybody's hands, the computer is mutating from a filing cabinet into a lens through which we will experience the world.