The future of the Internet

David Mitchell 3703259Jonothan Horne

• How the internet began….• The internet first began over 25 years ago when it

was used by the U.S Department of Defense to create a computer network that would survive a nuclear war. The internet then evolved, mainly used by academic institutions, scientists and the government to share information. This meant these bodies could access each other’s information and allowed to send information to each other via databases and E-mail.

• The internet became available to the general public in 1992, in which the general public could gain access to Text documents, Graphics and videos displayed on the internet. The internet also allowed the General public to be able to download software, communicate with each other using various types of forums, chat or social networking sites like MySpace or Face book.

• The internet was seen as business’ as a good way to advertise on the internet and there was a mad rush which had people and companies signing up by the millions with internet service providers. By mid 1994 the internet was estimates to be connected to 2 million computers in 100 different countries, today it is estimated there is over one hundred million websites and billions of webpage’s.

• Internet runs at different speeds according to what type of connection it has, people with low speed internet connections such as 56kb modem of if connected over a phone line, will receive a low bandwidth connection. A low bandwidth connection makes the internet very slow. To speed up the bandwidth, therefore making connection to the internet faster, you will need to connect to the internet via DSL lines, cable, satellite and wireless networks, this will increase the bandwidth therefore making the internet quicker and making it much more useful.

• The future of the Internet.

• Internet has moved on from one only being able to be accessed by PC’s to now having internet devices such as Mobile phones and PDA’s that can send and receive emails and access the web. It is predicted that everything from cars to refrigerators with b connected to the internet.

• An example of this already happening is a fridge from Electrolux. It has a wireless internet connection that manages the stock in the fridge and pantry. It recognizes when the fridge is low and you can get on the internet and order what you need online. You select what you need, and it works by sending an order via email to your local supermarket.

• A survey was run on 742 experts in the field of computing, politics, and business and more than half of the experts has a positive outlook on the nets future but 46% have serious reservations.

• The experts surveyed also agreed that personal time and work time between physical and virtual reality will be cut by everyone who uses that internet but did not say it would affect social relations.

• The Internet is forever expanding and changing and it would be naive to think that their are not new revelations just around the corner. We have seen some massive changes in schools and their use of the internet, changes from a resource tool to gather information to a networking tool where students who miss a class could watch a web blog or a video on that days class.

• All these tools are used to great effect at the present but i wanted to look at what changes we will see in the future of the internet. experts say that “virtual worlds will revolutionize training and education’, in fact all forms of knowledge sharing, and through virtual experimentation. This meaning that students in the future may be able to go to school at home and interact and learn from their own P.C

• “There is a strong likelihood that virtual reality will become less virtual and more reality for many. However, I see this as an addiction phenomenon that will likely inspire us to understand unexplored dimensions of being human.” – Barry Chudakov, principal, TheChudakov Company.

• This statements is great in theory but quite scary as some reservations about the possibility of not being able to distinguish between the real and virtual. This could be a major threat to peoples exsistance as people may forget how to interact with people in a real life situation as they will have been raped up in their own virtual world were they can be anyone and anywhere they want.

• “The year is 2016. You’ve just come out of surgery and are being pushed down the hospital corridor on a gurney toward the recovery room. The nurses know you are on the way because a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag on your plastic patient identification bracelet automatically generated an alert to the nursing station.

• The doctor doing rounds checks the Internet to monitor your vital signs. As always, the implants in your body are beaming real-time information about your brain waves and blood pressure to a protected web site 24/7. Your daughter, who is on a different continent, is already whispering words of encouragement into your ear—thanks to an embedded speech processor equipped with 802.11 wireless technology, TCP/IP communications protocol, and specialized software that allows sound from the Internet to flow directly into your cochlea. Using your VOIP-enabled mobile telephone, you tell her not to worry”.

• This is the upcoming future of the internet, the internet will be allowing social interaction and the processing of information on vital everyday life at the push of a button. It has been predicted that ‘Today’s devices will disappear. Electronics will instead be embedded in our environment, woven into our clothing, and written directly to our retinas from eyeglasses and contact lenses’. The information being processed to us will be available through a hand held device that will give the user links to everything they need to run their everyday lives. This however sound alarm bells to some who might think that we are just relying on a computer to run our life and decide what to do for us, but i think that as long as we have the power to turn off or not use such devices the power will be in our hands it is just up to the user on how much of his life he wants the internet to take over.

References

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5370688.stm

• http://www.centerspan.org/tutorial/net.htm• http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/03

future.htm• http://www.islandsbusiness.com/islands_busi

ness/index_dynamic/containerNameToReplace=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=18084/overideSkinName=issueArticle-full.tpl

• http://www.redherring.com/Home/16391