To grasp a glimpse at the futures, you must always begin with the past. Understanding the roots from whence we have come and how we have arrived at our present situation with all its guts and glory is foundational to thinking about where we may go in the years ahead. When we fi rst began thinking about the notion of innovation and the technologies of communication we went way back to the beginning and have in fact returned several times to ponder foundational questions like whether Neanderthals had the capacity to speak and how oral societies adjusted to the world of written words. These and other monumental moments in the history of human communication technologies have helped us to think about the ways in which human communication might radically change in the futures. Will we someday soon be part artilect, part human with the ability to program our own internal software and download information to and from our friends? Will we be able to 3D print our clothing, new shoes, or the food we eat? Will synthetic biology allow us to manage our own genetic structures to enable longer, healthier lives?
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