Google cannnot be compared to the Multivac as the content that is taken by google is in a non data object format that cannot be easliy acted on by the best A.I. algorithms.

Factoetum is the Multivac

I think it's brilliant to step back and compare science present with fiction past

Google is certainly something noone predicted & yet so many underestimate its prowess

google multivac

<<In 1958 Isaac Asimov wrote a short story titled "All the Troubles of the World" (included in the collection "Nine Tomorrows"). It described a world transformed by Multivac, a giant all-knowing computer. Asimov died in 1992, a mere four years before Larry and Sergey started their project "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Below are selected quotes from Asimov's story (no spoilers), next to relevant imagery from Google >>

http://neil.fraser.name/news/2009/12/29/

Interesting how this observation ties in with another thread – http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-12-25-n64.html <<On the US Gov’t "Going Google">>, as "In all cases, it [Mulitivac] is a *government-run* computer that answers questions" [1]

As Neil (http://neil.fraser.name/neil.jpg) is an insider to Google he must be knowing something which he tries to reveal without being too blunt about it. ;)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multivac

" Stereotype"
That's only exterior. Besides, nerds with beards combine the best of both worlds. ;)