re: #54 ggt

One of the Sci-Fi books I read recently actually had that scenerio. Very few could read because there was no reason to —the computers did everything by voice or people were wired into the system with implants.

History was lost to all but the scholars.

Wish I could remember the book—perhaps it was a short story from podcast.

A part (there are many plot points) of Neal Stephenson’s “The Diamond Age” deals with interactive books and movies where certain characters in the book or movie responds according to input from the reader/viewer.

There are “Ractives” who work on “stages.” They are actors who have hundreds of nanodata points imbedded into their body, and in the stage booth, these hundreds of points are connected to the “network” and they are “hired” to play certain characters in a book or movie. The person reading/viewing see the “characters” not the human attached to the story (Ractive can be on the other side of the planet) and the Ractive has no idea who he/she is interfacing with.

Takes books/media etc. to a whole new level. Even the chopsticks used in eateries in this book have a coating of nano material that transmits advertisements on the chopstick while you are eating.