Although only available to only about a 100 testers, Twine has caused a stir among web experts because it is one of the first few commercial ventures to try harnessing the semantic web.

Other semantic start-ups include the search engines Powerset and True Knowledge, and a free semantic database service called Freebase.

At the same time, Twine could enable entirely new forms of advertising. "If we understand about your interests we can provide more relevant adverts," Spivak says. "If they can become 100% relevant, they actually become content not adverts."

One of the things about the internet, is that as it changes so we change. Often not directly or fundamentally, but we are learning that the best way to get the right answer, is to ask the right question as we go we find out what the right questions are (often the hard way). There is talk of people becoming like computers, and the reverse, but the truth is, it is both, almost symbiosis. As our ability to retrieve information improves, so will our ability to learn. I always try and remember that the internet is a means to an end. We should never get to the stage that we can't function without it.

I always try and remember that the internet is a means to an end. We
should never get to the stage that we can't function without it.

That's an interesting point you bring, pokkets. I wonder how do you mean it. Can we function without electricity? yes, but our way of life would be different without it. same goes for cars, telephone, modern medical services etc. They are all facilitating our life in different ways, they all influence how we perceive ourselves and life at large as well.

Because many of the problems we've had to solve, that the internet now solves for us, we have saved our brain the work, so the internet, and programs are doing our thinking for us. I was hoping that it it never gets to the stage where we can't think without them.
With the way technology has been developing, and the amount of innovation, and scope, I don't suppose there is a chance of imagining what the future holds until it arrives.

I would be (and am in fact) careful in proclaiming that computer programs are doing 'our thinking' for us. That programs are capable of doing calculations, retain memory, and the whole variety of machine operated functions isn't the same as thinking to my mind.
I think that the current time upon its surge of technology is a great opportunity to indeed ask ourselves what thinking is all about (and what it isn't).

You're right, and I know it can be both dangerous and pointless, to worry about problems that don't exist yet and may never exist. I should also remember that how we think is being reexamined, not just philosophically, but physically, with techniques that are providing more clinical evidence to describe and understand the processes. I suppose one of the best ways to avoid the negative potential of progress, is to focus on the potential, and real positive applications, and their continued development. Most often the negative can't compete.

Most of all, I think we should keep an open mind concerning changes that are coming our way. I wouldn't like to see a future that is curtailed by fear, which unfortunately plays a roll in many of the views aired these days in regards to technological advances.
That, to my mind weighs more than any attempt to tag a certain direction as 'negative' or 'positive'.