"Everything that can be invented has been invented." This comment, commonly attributed to Charles H. Duell, commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents in 1899, is intriguing, if not entirely accurate. At the end of the nineteenth century, it did seem as if everything that was absolutely necessary for a rural/agrarian or an urban/industrial mode of living had been invented. By the end of that century, transportation innovations including the railroad and the steamboat were flourishing, the nascent automobile had been developed, and experiments with flight were beginning to show promise. Communications systems had been advanced to include the telegraph, telephone, and radio telegraphy. Both factory owners and farmers benefited from machines that could do jobs faster and better than humans could do them. Few could have predicted the revolution to come that led the world beyond the industrial age and toward the information...