AND the way information is used (Score 1)

As an industrial engineer, I can tell you that we are well on our way to a revolution, it's just not visible to most people. Yet.

Prior to the telegraph, innovations in manufacturing and design primarily were created through reverse engineering and individual genius. With the invention of faster forms of travel and better communication mediums, design and manufacturing innovations progressed more rapidly, and spread across greater sections of the world.

Now we have machines that can not only communicate, but can also process data, which helps suggest new innovations to the human operator. The data can also be used to run the machines that create goods, like the factories in Japan that produce industrial robots, which are manufactured 100% by industrial robots - no human intervention.

Better technology begets better technology. The information age is not only about how the information is produced, it's also about how it is used. As information tools produce better information, and communicate it better, the result will be better tools and goods, and cheaper. This will create big changes in society, but at what point they will be easily noticed is beyond me.