How would you bridge the gap between a knowledge system that holds information and a knowledge system that can determine meaning out of the information?

We will undoubtedly get much smarter. I didn't go into it in any detail, but you'll see one of the mechanisms for omniscience is internal computing. That would mean that we would essentially upgrade our neocortex. I feel very strongly that we will massively upgrade our neocortex by connecting it to the cloud, there are a lot of evolutionary trends in our history that suggest major transitions (such as a global brain) would also result in a extension of our neocortex. This would obviously be a radically leap though. Creates a new world. But global brain will always be more powerful and knowledgeable than any one of us.

IBM's Watson is the same thing. It can already do calculations faster than humans, but it's still programmed to do so. The technology doesn't know why it does what it does, it can't give meaning, and in my mind an omniscient knowledge base worthy of the term singularity should be able to do so. That's a really big step AI needs to take that I don't think it will.

Yes, I agree with all of that, but I believe we will figure out how to make sense of all human knowledge. It will just take a massive leap in our software capabilities. Being incredulous isn't evidence that we won't do that. I suspect that the biggest improvements in software will come when we completely understand the human brain. That would make sense, since it is human thinking we are trying to duplicate.

Maybe for plastic

When you manufacture on the atomic scale it's all the same.

the transportation costs will rise dramatically

No. Transportation is going to be free and infinite. We also won't be driving any vehicles, they will be driven by AI.

I feel like I'm missing some vital information as I don't really get what you're trying to say here.

Industrial Internet. Here's more.

Do you want every interaction to be connected to this network, the global brain?

It is not about want. It's about the system-level trends. Everyone will be using the Internet for every experience in their life by 2040 (with the aid of full-immersion virtual reality, wearable and than internal computing and related technologies). Also the whole environment will be online. This stuff will happen.

That the IT network will level the playing field, connecting everything and everyone and thus create abundance for all?

Pretty much.

This article by Richard Florida is a great response to why that line of thought is wrong

I strongly disagree.