Finding useful information amid the junk is the great technical problem of the moment. Bush knew a computer connected to a global information network could solve a problem that, in 1945, barely existed yet. We are just now learning how. Some ambitious efforts to tame the Web's chaos are avowedly inspired by Bush. At Twisted Systems Inc. in Providence, Rhode Island, engineer Gregory Lloyd is designing better ways to record a user's associations between different Web sites.
Bookmarks are a start.
But then the problem is managing your bookmarks. They can degenerate into a slush pile, which is not what Bush wanted. Alexa Internet, a San Francisco company, is similarly engaged. The company's centerpiece is a navigation service that provides information about where a user is, and might go, on the Web, as well as prepackaged paths through selected subjects. Bush is a surprising forebear of the freewheeling netizen.