Infonaut

The word "infonaut" was introduced by Howard Rheingold in his book "Tools for Thought: the history and future of mind-expanding technology" in 1985. In Chapter One he describes "infonauts" as "the youngest generation, the ones who are exploring the cognitive domains we all soon experience" (p.15), or as "the older brothers and sisters of the adolescent hackers you read about in the papers. Most of them are in their twenties and thirties. They work for themselves or for some research institution or software house, and represent the first members of the McLuhan generation to use the technology invented by the von Neumann generation as tools to extend their imagination. From the science of designing what they call the "user interface" —...