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"The wealth of the universe is all over your head. We need to take command of the solar system to gain that wealth..."
- Larry Niven
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| Autosecretary (Autosec) | ||
| A software agent able to accept your query and then seach the public net for related information. |
Interesting pre-search engine idea of how to make sense of a global information network.
| Her autosec flashed the queue of her clipping program... a backlog of fifteen thousand headlines culled from news services and Net-zines in every time zone. She flushed everything having to do with the accident, and the tally dropped below a hundred. Those she might scan later, to catch up with what was happening in the world. |
| Technovelgy from Earth,
by David Brin. Published by Bantam in 1990 Additional resources -
|
Here's another bit:
Brin takes a backseat to the venerable Arthur C. Clarke for the general idea, though: see the Personal Interest Profile from Clarke's 1978 novel The Fountains of Paradise.
...was the die-off just a local "adjustment," restricted to south Texas? A few words to her autosecretary would send a ferret program forth to fetch the truth in milliseconds. But then, what good would knowing do? The Net was such a vast sea of information, sipping from it sometimes felt like trying to slake your thirst from a fire hose.
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'Alex did not find it surprising that people... were electronically minting their own cash.'
'I had determined that my first attempt should be a visit to Mars.'
To follow the user like a pet while carrying their cargo!
'Deveet unhooked his catch and laid it on the bank beside him. It was a metal fish.'
'...waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'
'Seen close it was not completely flexible, but made instead of pivoted and smoothly finished segments.'
'...great rectangular slabs of muscle, slung into a rectangular frame.'
