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Sunday, October 19, 2014

Memex on Video

While I was reading all of the articles about the Memex, I instantly pictured an iPad. This device held all of the functions that Bush described. However, when I got to the end of the articles, Bush had described furniture that would work as an associative, indexing device. Nevertheless, I think that he had revolutionary ideas that describe some of the processes that search engines use today--finding information by association, rather than simply indexing information.

When I did my search of memex, I went to YouTube because I wanted to see a visual of what people thought it would look like. The video I found, Memex 1999 AD Special Extended Limited Edition, depicts a young boy using the device. He presses several buttons and is not only taught rather than going to school, but is able to pull up home videos of him and his mother. I think that this is exactly how Bush may have pictured the memex. I also think that it's interesting to note that this video also brought up the issue of education through video, because this is a very forward thinking idea. What I gathered from Bush's readings was that this was more of a personal device based on enhancing someone's personal interests, but whoever directed this video had a different takeaway.


2 comments:

  1. After reading your post I could help but imagine what Bush would think about the computer today. Would he be shocked or would he think we have not progress that much in the last 70 years. I also think it would be interesting to see what ideas he would have with today's technologies. I also like this depiction that this video states of the future its interesting that they think we won't need school. Just something fun to think about.

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  2. I found this video to be really intriguing. First off, I also appreciated the visual representation of the memex. The blog post I wrote about also included a visualization which helped cleared up what Bush was trying to describe to us because I personally find it hard to translate words into a picture (visual learner problems). But also, I think the "abstractness" of the video is trying to point to a deeper meaning of the memex, rather than just point out how awesome and technologically advanced it is. Perhaps its trying to point out some social implications that the memex may lead to.

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