The newest book by Malcolm Gladwell? "Fascinating." Uploading human memory into computers? "Fascinating." How stone lithography works? "Fascinating."

It's an apt description for Brain himself.

The 45-year-old entrepreneur founded HowStuffWorks.com eight years ago because he wanted to write about how cars work. It became one of Time magazine's "50 Best Web Sites" in 2002. He sold it that year.

Since then, the Cary resident has become a writer and futurist. Now he zips around the country to talk about robots, business and technology -- he has even been on "Oprah" -- yet sometimes he forgets his own age.

"I have just a general memory problem," Brain says. "My whole writing career is dedicated to the fact that I don't have a memory."

Brain writes a lot.

He writes about the future at the site www.marshallbrain.com/ robotic-nation.htm.

He writes about robots on his blog, marshallbrain.blogspot.com. He writes about himself on MySpace.com -- though he confesses he doesn't quite get it.

In all, he maintains 15 Web sites on various subjects and answers hundreds of e-mail messages a day. In a typical week, more than a million people read what he has to say.

Remember: Robots!

He has curious ideas. By 2050, Brain envisions a world where robots will be ubiquitous and people will be able to live in computer-generated virtual worlds.

In his online essay "Robotic Freedom," he writes, "We are standing right now on the threshold of the robotic era. Once robots start arriving in the job market in significant numbers ... they have the potential to dramatically change the world economy."

If Brain is not writing, it's usually because he's traveling. He may be giving a talk about humans becoming integrated with computers -- as he did last week in Vermont. Or at a local school demonstrating scientific principles, for example, toting along a heavy scuba diving rig as a visual aid to help explain how it works.

Lee Ann Obringer, 40, a staff writer for HowStuffWorks.com, says Brain's ability to explain things is amazing. "At first, he's a little bit quiet," she says with a laugh, "but once you get him talking. ..."

A wall of books -- he has read all of them -- dominates his office in the suburban Cary home that he shares with his wife and four children.

At 5-foot-10 and 200 pounds, Brain looks boyish with his tousled, sandy hair. To fall asleep at night, he reads comics.

"It's a way of clearing the palette," he explains.

Brain is a huge fan of writers Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan, but lately he has been enthralled by Malcom Gladwell, best-selling author of "The Tipping Point" and "Blink."

"If I could cause myself to write in a different way, Malcom Gladwell would be my model," Brain says. "I admire him because he's taking stuff that's esoteric and academic and he's making it palatable to everyone."

Brain's development

Brain was born in California, where his father was an engineer who worked on the Apollo space program and the transit systems of San Francisco and Atlanta. He was 14 when his father died.

Shortly after the death, Brain's mother dragged him to Big Brothers Big Sisters. One mentor was a businessman who planted an entrepreneurial seed in the young Brain.

It would be years before Brain's business sense was able to sprout.

He graduated from college in New York in 1983, then came to N.C. State University to pursue a doctorate. In 1992, he left the program to start a software training and consulting company, Interface Technologies, in Raleigh.

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