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10 Manuel Castellsof a technological revolution, as documented by Paul David (1975) for theindustrial revolution. Whatever measures we take in terms of integration ofcircuitry in microelectronics, of speed and volume in telecommunications, incomputing power measured from megabytes to terabytes, and in the managementof complex operations per lines of software code, they all show anunprecedented rate of technological change in the information and communicationfield.But I advance the hypothesis that there is something else, not only quantitativebut qualitative: the capacity of these technologies to self-expand theirprocessing power because of their recurrent, communicative ability. This isbecause of the continuous feedback effect on technological innovationproduced by the knowledge generated with the help of these technologies. Inother words, these technologies hold emergent properties; that is, the ability toderive new, unforeseen processes of innovation by their endless reconfiguration(Johnson, 2001). This is a risky hypothesis because processing power mayfind the physical limits to the further integration of microchips, and thecomplexity of networked computation may overwhelm the programmingpower of software developers under the conditions of proprietary software.However, every doomsday prediction of the limits of integration has beenbelied by manufacturing research. Continuing research into biological materials,and other new materials, may yield new possibilities, including chemicallyprocessed DNA-chips. Open source software is overcoming the barriers oftechnological oligopoly and unleashing waves of new applications and developmentbreakthroughs, in an increasing virtuous circle created by thousands offree programmers networked around the world. And, most significantly, thenetworking capacity of distributed processing power and software developmentescapes the limits of stand-alone machines, and creates a global, digitizedsystem of human–machine interaction, always ready for action.Thus, a formal version of the hypothesis presented above is the following:in the first three decades of the information and communication technologyrevolution we have observed the self-generated, expansive capacity of newtechnologies to process information; current limits of integration, programming,and networking capacity are likely to be superseded by new waves ofinnovation in the making; and if and when the limits of the processing powerof these technologies are reached, a new technological paradigm will emerge– under forms and with technologies that we cannot imagine today, except inscience fiction scenarios, or in the innovative dreams of the usual suspects.Secondly, digital technologies are also characterized by their ability torecombine information on the basis of recurrent, interactive communication.This is what I call the hypertext, in the tradition of Ted Nelson and TimBerners-Lee. One of the key contributions of the Internet is its potential abilityto link up everything digital from everywhere and to recombine it. Indeed,