The Future of the Internet

THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: RedHerring 4/10]
If pundits are right, in 10 years’ time the barriers between our bodies and the Internet will blur as will those between the real world and virtual reality. 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, predicts inventor, entrepreneur, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil. “Devices will no longer be spokes on the Internet -- they will be the nodes themselves,” he says. Everything from the family fridge to the office coffee pot -- as well as heating, cooling, and security systems -- will be managed through the Internet, possibly using souped-up mobile phones doubling as universal remote controls, says Google’s Vint Cerf. By 2016, he predicts the online population of 1 billion will treble, and a huge portion will be mobile. And by then, the Internet will become so pervasive that connecting to it will no longer be a conscious act. Bandwidth access of 100 megabits per second or more will become the norm. “It is probably a safe bet that everyone will be able to have a full-motion, high-definition real-time link to anyone,” says Bram Cohen, creator of the popular peer-to-peer program BitTorrent. Once that happens, “the concept of who is online and who is offline will melt away,” says Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo’s director of media and desktop search.
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