New ways to manage information

Although the Information Age has many upsides, one of its major downsides i s information overload. Indeed, the amount of information easily pushes the limit of what people can manage. This conflict drives research to seek a solution to humanity's information woes. As computers have shrunk from room size to palm size, so they have al so moved from being passive accessories, such as laptops and personal digit al assistants, to wearable appliances that form an integral part of our per sonal space. Wearable computers are always on and accessible. As the computer moves from desktop to coat pocket to the human body, its ab ility to help manage, sort, and filter information will become more intimat ely connected to our daily lives. In the next five years, expect to sge wea rable computing technology embedded in application-specific portable device s such as digital music players and cellular phones. By the next decade, you may have a. device that gives continuous access to computing and communications resources on a machine intelligent enough to k now what you're interested in, when to give it to you, and how to present i t in the most appropriate manner. Artificial intelligence will augment human intelligence to make information management as natural as any other physiological function, freeing the hum an intellect to focus on creative rather than computational functions.