Lucifer's Technologies: The Innovation Ring

Western Electric would also 

eventually become part of Lucent

We are surrounded by technology of a kind that our great-grandparents could barely have conceived of. And now it's threatening to change all our lives in ways we still don't understand. 

Lucifer's Technologies: The Invisible Man

..

So much of the technology we take for granted today - the technology that has revolutionized every field of human endeavor - emerged from Bell Laboratories (later known as Lucent Technologies) in the quarter-century following World War II. Bell Labs was a division of AT&T, on whose Board of Directors the estimable Vannevar Bush sat, starting in 1947. 

Lucifer's Technologies: The Eyeblink of History

The Faustian Bargain
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Many have claimed that our present technology arose from contact with alien intelligences. Whether you believe that or not, one thing is certain: the rate of technological progress shot up like a rocket shortly after the end of World War II. 

And it must be said that technology seems more and more like an invasive -- or alien -- contagion, disrupting entire industries, economies, and communities.