Today,there's scarcely an aspect of our life that isn't being upended by the torrent ofinformation available on the hundreds of millions of sites crowding the Internet, not tomention its ability to keep us in constant touch with each other via electronic mail."If the automobile and aerospace technology had exploded at the same pace ascomputer and information technology,"says Microsoft,”a new car would cost about$2 and go 600 miles on a thimbleful of gas. And you could buy a Boeing 747 forthe cost of a pizza.” Probablythe biggest payoft, however, is the billions of dollars the Internet is saving companiesin producing goods and serving for the needs of their customers. Nothing like ithas been seen since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, whenpower-driven machines began producing more in a day than men could turn out in nearly ayear. "We view the growth of the Internet and e-commerce as a globalmegatrend,"says Merrill Lynch, " along the lines of printing press,the telephone, the computer,and electricity." Youwould be hard pressed to name something that isn't available on the Intemet.Consider: books, health care, movie tickets, construction materials, baby clothes, stocks,cattle feed, music, electronics, antiques, tools, real estate, toys, autographs offamous people, wine and airline tickets. And even after you've moved on to yourfinal resting place there's no reason those you love can't keep in touch.A companycalled FinalThoughts.com offers a place for you to store “afterlifee-mails"you can send to Heaven with the help of a"guardianangel". Kidstoday are so computer savvy that it virtually ensures the United States will remain theunchallenged leader in cyberspace for the foreseeable future.Nearly allchildren in families with incomes of more than $75,000 a year have home computers,according to a study by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Youngsters fromages 2 to 17 at all income levels have computers, with 52% of those connectedto the Internet.
overthrown(Para. 1)
【正确答案】：upended
