Singularity going mainstream - Change: Approaching 'singularity'

StarTribune.com - February 21, 2009, by Karen Youso

Consider the telephone. Since its invention in the 1800s, it went from crank-style to push-button to cell by the 1980s. Quickly it became smaller and smaller, smarter and smarter. Now phones take pictures, play music, send text and soon will wrap around your wrist like a bracelet. Or, consider the nanoparticle. The number of products on store shelves using nanotechnology -- manipulating atoms to create new materials -- in 1990 was near zero. In 2004, it was 212. Today, it's more than 800 and increasing by three or four a week.

See a pattern here? Things are moving faster and faster. It feels like you can't keep up. Remember the last months of 2008, and the dramatic series of events from presidential campaign, election, Wall Street collapse, wild stock market swings, the bailouts? It was enough to make your head spin. Indeed, society is changing at a pace that can seem like it's whirling out of control. And you haven't seen anything yet.

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