D’Aloisio believes summaries are a way to bring to new media one of the more satisfying attributes of the old. “It’s the ability to get to the end and then you’re done,” he says. This sense of “completion” has been lost in cyber space. “The problem with the internet is that you can never finish an infinite stream.”
People talk about the “fire-hose” of information that has been unleashed by the internet, and how it is changing reading habits. The tousle-haired 18-year-old has spent the past few years devising software that aims to let you sip from the flow without being drenched with information.
