Overview

So Volkswagen was right. Small really is beautiful. Power rests not with the big and strong, but with the small and capable. You only have to witness the number of compact cars on the American landscape today to realize that millions of people have arrived at the same conclusion. And Volkswagen did it again with the "retro" bug. Small is "in." Forever "in."

This fondness for the diminutive doesn't stop with cars, either. People are discovering that little things generally have tremendous advantages over their larger counterparts. Paperback books have long outsold hardcover editions, partly because they're less expensive and partly because they're easier to take everywhere. Wristwatches have replaced pocket watches because of their reduced size and greater portability. Technological advances have given today's miniature electronic components more capability than much larger components in the past. Sales of pocket TVs, palmtop computers, and handheld remote controls are skyrocketing. Even today's nuclear weapons are considerably smaller than the ones dropped on Japan during World War II, yet they possess substantially more destructive power.

We owe much of this shrinking universe to superior technology. It takes highly advanced technology to reduce a mainframe computer to a microchip small enough to fit in one's hand. Without the miniaturization afforded by high-density microprocessors, many of today's products would be too cumbersome to be useful.

Still, it requires some level of user sophistication to be able to use these high-technology wonders. It seems as if the smaller and more advanced a device is,...