David Kline

About the author: David Kline is a contributing writer for the monthly magazine Wired, a commentator for National Public Radio, and coauthor of Road Warriors: Dreams and Nightmares Along the Information Highway.

Embedded systems—tiny computers that are embedded within everyday products—could have as much of an impact on social and economic life as the electric motor did in the early 1900s. The Internet could expand beyond PCs to invisibly link automobiles, telephones, televisions, CD players, and many other products whose functions would be controlled by a microprocessor, operating system, and software. Smaller memory requirements would enable these embedded products to become very affordable for hundreds of millions of consumers.

If you want to glimpse the future of the Internet (and of computing itself), look to the...