Computers

In the comments, Microsoft's Steve Ball had a go at expressing it:

Your PC is a 'Powers of 10' microscope you can use to study every minute detail of any subject under the sun.

It is also the telescope you can use to discover and interact with every thought that has ever been thought, every book, lecture, class, picture, film, play, brainstorm, equation, contradiction, emotion, song, performance, conversation, idea, person, character, genius, and idiot who opts in to participate in the globally connected collective consciousness.

The PC is also our primary local interactive connection to global context (physical, social, political, emotional, spiritual) in the universe.

Today's tools and interfaces are extremely primitive. If you think of Vista as MS-DOS, then image what lies ahead when we get to the next 'Vista' ten years from now.

We're exchanging primitive and random bits of ascii and you think 'we're done'?

These boxes give us the power to share and distribute experiences and broadcast intelligence (and stupidity) in ways we have only just begun to imagine.