In a world where this system is a way of life, almost every aspect of our routines would be changed in some way.  We’ll start in the classroom: A teacher is lecturing to a group of students, and has told her device to link up with those of the students in her class.  As they listen to her speak, her device automatically converts everything being said into text and relays the transcription to each of the students' machines. This would provide notes for later studying without manually taking them down.
    Additionally, as the lecture unfolds- let's say on the subject of nationalism and its role in the events which led to the first world war- each of the students' devices would behave uniquely. For instance, in a very simplistic application, if I were listening to her speak and she used a word I wasn't familiar with- "intemperate" let's say- my device would catch it and immediately look up and display the relevant definition on my visualizer (which could be ignored at the swipe of a finger, or course).
    But how would it know the relevant definition? Through context. It would look at the entire phrase: "....as they should have known, but through intemperance and recklessness in their formation of alliances, European powers were caught in a web of....." Through simple logic (statistical, frequency based analysis of its use) my device would know that she had not implied the secondary meaning of the word- that the leaders of Europe had been signing treaties while drunk- but rather a synonym of excessive. 
    But how would it correctly guess that I didn't know the meaning of intemperate, as opposed to any other word throughout the lecture?  Again, through simple statistics. It would have been keeping track of what articles I had been reading online and in print (remember it has ever watching "eyes", constantly converting street signs and every day papers into text which it archives). It would also have been keeping track of the words I use in conversation and that other people use while talking to me, dialogue from movies and television I had recently watched, and even song lyrics I had heard.  From this entire collection of my language-based interaction it would then be able to make a well educated guess about whether or not I understand a specific word, inform me of the definition, and remind me of it from time to time.
“By ‘augmenting human intellect’ we mean increasing the capability of man to approach a complex problem situation, to gain comprehension to suit his particular needs…”
-Douglas Engelbart, 1962
 
            While following the lecture, my device will also interpose in different ways. For example, my professor might continue talking about the networks of allegiance that forced the onset of such a war.  Studies show and practice proves that a web of visual and conceptual associations weave together in our minds to form memories- we call this learning.  To assist my learning process then, the device would also follow the teacher's speech in order to periodically pull up relevant images from online: "...and having each sworn alliance not only to each other but even to the allies of their allies' allies, nearly every European country was entangled in..." and suddenly this picture would pop up:


    By seamlessly combining the two educational senses- hearing and sight- learning could be quicker and more efficient; there is a reason that political cartoons and other visual allegories have been so effective throughout history:

"Stop them damned pictures. I don't care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures!"
-Boss Tweed on the political cartoons of Thomas Nast which did eventually remove Tweed from public favor and political power.

            The balance between universality and individual tailoring would benefit the user incredibly. Having gone through over a decade and a half of school I can't even count the amount of times I've learned about the First World War. To my regret however, I couldn't honestly tell you the date of the assassination which initiated it. I must have re-learned it half a dozen times at least, and yet I would still need to consult with the internet for a few seconds before comfortably writing about it.  I can't be sure as the exact cause of my faulty recollection, however I believe it has something to do with the fact that it was always taught in relation to a different aspect of 20th century history (American, World, first half, second half, art, culture, war, etc.) It was therefore placed in proximity to different concepts and in a different temporal position in the mental time line which I had formed to pass that specific class or test and subsequently forgot. If this event had been shown to me on a visual time line that automatically added newly relevant dates and remained steady throughout my entire educational career, on the other hand, I’m sure I would know it by heart.

“…developing the new methods of thinking and working that allow the human to capitalize upon the computer’s help.” -Engelbart
 

            This is the real significance of such a device, which from grade school on could build up a single historical time line and a malleable visual model to go along with it, hand tailored for each student and therefore relevant to their unique interests and level.  When paired with Mnemosyne like techniques, these dates would be committed to memory in no time.  Easier and more thorough memorization from a young age would actually facilitate a better understanding of history as a whole, from a broader perspective. Such a tool for the average person would be humanistic in the best sense- not to mention the telescoping effects it would have for young minds.  We would actually increase both the quantity and quality individual knowledge; if we do this for every individual, we do it for our entire society, which would become uniquely equipped to understand the present through a firm foundation in the past:  “We learn from history that we do not learn anything from history.”

What effects would a non-forgetful public have on democracy?

 
            Back in the classroom, this device would also affect the lecture itself.  Imagine that beforehand, everyone in this class had submitted their academic "profile" to the professor. This profile contains a great deal of valuable information: what books each student had read or studied, their built up historical time lines and level of relevant knowledge, classes taken, places visited, articles read, movies viewed, etc. A daunting amount of information, but analyzation software could trim it down to a usable pulp, allowing the professor to better understand the specific needs of each individual and the class as a whole. A pre-lecture assignment could even be given on the basis of this knowledge: "I see that only two of you have read Zinn's history of the United States. Be sure to read chapter 14 by Monday, when we will discuss America’s role in this whole mess," making the class more efficient for all involved, while instantly standardizing a new universal education system.  It would give you an immediate clue into the personalities of the students in your class or a new student transferring from a different school. [On the other side, this also sadly enforces the pattern of the past years, wherein statistics take precedent over factual accounts or experience, and everything is usefully but falsely compressed into digits. Claiming to know a student based on what books he's read is like claiming to know a person based on what music they listen to or blogs they read.  Like beautiful penmanship under the current keyboard tyranny, certain things must be shed to gain the advantages of digitalization.  I talk about this in the third section of this essay.]

Prologue -1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - Index and Short Summaries