Ursula Franklin was a metallurgist who studied early Chinese bronzes, a crystallographer, a professor of physics, a pacifist, an advocate of women's rights, a Quak­er, a moralist, a pioneer in the study of what technology does to us and our environment, a recipient of some 20 honorary degrees, a public intellectual of the first order, and a truly wonderful human being whose eyes actually twinkled, with a mischievous look on her face. She was all of these things rolled together, each of them informing the rest. 

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The digital revolution is breaking new ground every day. Technology has a way of doing that. I remember when Hewlett-Packard introduced its first "laptop" computer, which stored a page and a half of writing. It revolutionized my life as a newspaper columnist, allowing me to write on planes or in a tent and submit articles through a phone. I never imagined the steady advances that would lead to today's powerful laptops, tablets and handheld computers.