Rattling off esoteric facts to friends and colleagues at a party or in the office is often seen as a simple way to impress. You may have tried this at some point — to impress a prospective boy or girl friend or a group of peers or even your boss. Not surprisingly, your facts will impress if they are relevant to the discussion at hand. However, your audience will be even more agog at your uncanny, intellectual prowess if the facts and figures relate to some wildly obtuse domain — quotes from authors, local bird species, gold prices through the years, land-speed records through the ages, how electrolysis works, etymology of polysyllabic words, and so it goes. So, it comes as no surprise that many technology companies fall over themselves to promote their products as a way to make you, the smart user, even smarter. But does having constant, realtime access to a powerful computer or smartphone or spectacles linked to an immense library of interconnected content, make you smarter?… Read more