What Does the Future Hold for the Internet?

        By Claudia Lynch, Benchmarks Editor (lynch@unt.edu)

        No one knows what the future holds, but sometimes you can make an educated guess. By taking a sample of items reported in Edupage (edupage@ivory.educom.edu), a twice-weekly summary of news items on information technology, between February and July of 1994 we can get an idea of the way things are going. Below are the results of this non-scientific sampling, arranged in broad categories. Some of the entries are not related to the Internet, per se, but give an indication of technological changes that may affect the way the Internet is used in years to come.

        I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions. Let me know if you have any predictions you want to share with our readers.

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        Growth, Access and Distribution Methods

        • Internet Statistics: The Net Keeps Growing and Growing Traffic on the NSF backbone growing by a stunning 20.7 percent nearly 2 terabytes during the month of March the largest single jump in the history of the Internet. Gopher traffic grew by 17.6 percent and http (WWW) grew by 32.0 percent to a new total of one-half terabyte per month. Http traffic grew by a total of 0.7 percent of total NSFNet traffic. (Internet Society, reported in Edupage 4/28/94)
        • Burgeoning Bulletin Boards According to Boardwatch, a magazine that follows BBS issues, the number of electronic bulletin boards has doubled in the past 18 months to 60,000 nationwide. More than 12 million Americans call into a BBS every day. (Investor's Business Daily 2/17/94 p. 4, reported in Edupage 2/17/94)
        • Population Boom in Cyberspace By the end of this year, nearly four million U.S. households will have signed on with one of the Big Three online services America Online, CompuServe or Prodigy. (Investor's Business Daily 6/9/94 C17, reported in Edupage 6/9/94)
        • FCC Divides Up Airwaves The FCC today will begin the process of carving a niche in the spectrum for personal communications services. Citing industry estimates, Chairman Reed Hundt predicts in a decade approximately 100 million Americans will be paying about $40 a month for PCs and other wireless services, as opposed to the $60-65 that 17 million now pay for cellular service. The most controversial issue involved in the PCs auctioning process is whether there should be a set-aside for small businesses and minorities. (New York Times 6/9/94 C1, reported in Edupage 6/9/94)
        • NTIA Will Fund Information Highway The head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration says its budget will go primarily toward jump-starting the creation of an information highway. $100 million of a $134 million budget request will go to grant programs to help state and local governments, schools, libraries, and health care and public safety providers to undertake the planning needed to ensure effective development of the telecommunications infrastructure. (BNA Daily Report for Executives 4/15/94 A32, reported in Edupage 4/19/94)
        • Small Change on the Net Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are developing NetBill, a computerized system for tracking and billing users for small transactions, such as a ten-cent charge per document. The developers hope NetBill will evolve into a universal accounting system on the Internet. (Chronicle of Higher Education 4/20/94 A31, reported in Edupage 4/19/94)
        • Smart Housing A consortium plans to link a community of 300 new smart homes and university residences in Newmarket to services ranging from home shopping to health care in a $50-million field trial of multi-media technology set to be operational by August 1995. Members of the Intercom Ontario consortium include York University, University of Toronto, the Government of Ontario, IBM Canada and Apple Canada (Toronto Star 4/19/94 D1, reported in Edupage 4/19/94)
        • High-Speed Data to the Home AT&T launches a new high-speed data service designed for use in the home. The company's Digital Long Distance Service will allow customers to make local and long-distance calls, as well as send full-motion color video, fax and data files over a single telephone line. (Tampa Tribune 4/27/94, reported in Edupage 4/28/94)
        • McCaw & Gates Plan Satellite Network Two high-tech entrepreneurs are planning a $9 billion wireless global Internet, using low earth orbit satellites to provide a wide array of wireless interactive voice, data and video services. Craig McCaw, McCaw Cellular Communications, and Bill Gates, Microsoft, envision a system that employs 840 refrigerator-sized satellites operating the 30/20 Ghz Ka-band to connect handheld phones and other electronic devices to tele-phone networks around the world. As currently planned, the Teledesic Corp. project is more than 10 times the size of Motorola's low earth orbit Iridium project. (Wall Street Journal 3/21/94 A3, reported in Edupage 3/22/94)
        • GLOBALNET to Link Cities GLOBALNET has chosen Orlando, Fla. as a prototype city in its project to link 300 metropolitan areas nationwide. The $3-million project will connect city agencies to each other and to the Internet. (St. Petersburg Times 3/28/94 p. 8, reported in Edupage 3/29/94)
        • Fiber Optic to Africa AT&T; hopes to use a $1-1.5 billion grid of undersea fiber optic cables for communications among African countries and between Africa and the rest of the world. African nations need to be connected to the global marketplace, says an AT&T; executive. The network would be owned and managed by Africans. (New York Times 4/26/94 C4, reported in Edupage 4/19/94)
        • IBM's China-bound IBM will work with China to provide a range of information technology ventures, including designing and installing several regional communications networks as well as a backbone linking them into a national system, establishing a software development center, and opening three networking sales and service centers. (Wall Street Journal 5/4/94 B5, reported in Edupage 5/5/94)
        • Access Canada The Canadian federal government blueprint for a new national utility called Access Canada to spur development of the info-highway would create a national web of networks linking every home, business, school and government office; the blueprint focuses initially on making the government a model-user of new technologies. (Toronto Globe & Mail 4/25/94 B3, reported in Edupage 4/19/ 94)
        • Compasses for Network Navigation There's an opportunity to make the Internet vastly more usable for business people. And that's what's going on now, says the vice president of WAIS (Wide Area Information Server). Software developers are flooding the market with tools for navigating the arcane labyrinth of Internet databases, and it's only going to get better. Even Microsoft will include an Internet-made-easy communications connection in its next major upgrade of Windows. (Investor's Business Daily 5/6/94 A3, reported in Edupage 5/8/94)
        • Interactive TV for Kids A new company called DaVinci Time and Space will develop interactive TV services in which kids will be able to play games, watch videos, learn, or communicate with other kids who have similar access to interactive cable systems. (New York Times 3/29/94, reported in Edupage 3/22/94)
        • The Power of Positive Thinking Brain-activated technology maps a person's brainwaves and uses the information to control physical objects, such as moving cursors on a computer screen, steering a wheelchair, and maybe even flying an airplane. (Discover 5/94 p. 58, reported in Edupage 4/19/94)

        What's Online?

        • Europe Online A group of European media, banking and publishing companies are launching Europe Online, an information service network that will offer interactive services initially in French, German and English. (Wall Street Journal 6/3/94 B4, reported in Edupage 6/ 5/94)
        • Electronic Newsstand To use the Internet as a way to take a look at Educom Review, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and many other national magazines, connect through Gopher internet.com or telnet internet.com and login as enews. The print version of the latest Educom Review is now in the mail to our subscribers ( Edupage 2/17/94)
        • Electronic Filing More than 14 million tax returns will be filed electronically this year, according to IRS estimates. (Wall Street Journal 2/16/94 A1, reported in Edupage 2/17/94)
        • Reuters Targets Info Highway Reuters is aggressively positioning itself to be a major contributor of the information that will travel the information superhighway. Over the past year the news service has acquired all or parts of 25 companies in an effort to solidify its role in providing the high-margin intellectual content that the electronic pipelines of the future will carry and that traders, investors and executives will pay to receive. (Business Week 2/21/94 p. 46, reported in Edupage 2/17/94)
        • Groceries Online Winn-Dixie supermarkets in Atlanta will soon be offering online computerized ordering services through America Online for a $9.95 delivery fee. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 2/17/94 K1, reported in Edupage 2/17/94)
        • Telemedicine Expands in Georgia The Georgia Statewide Academic and Medicine System, a two-way interactive TV system connecting doctors with patients at remote sites, will link at least 50 health care facilities by year's end. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 6/17094 B8, reported in Edupage 6/19 94)
        • Digital Cinema Pacific Bell's Cinema of the Future will begin transmitting movies electronically to about a dozen movie theaters in Los Angeles this summer. The new process involves converting the film into digital format, zapping it along fiber-optic lines to a video server, which doctors it up for feeding into high-definition film projectors in the local theater. (Wall Street Journal 3/21/94 B10, reported in Edupage 3/22/94)
        • Vanderbilt Puts TV Broadcast Abstracts on the Net Vanderbilt University has gone ahead with a controversial plan to make abstracts of television news broadcasts available on the Internet. Broadcasters have worried that the university eventually may post actual footage to its archive. The Television News Archive can be accessed by pointing your Gopher at: tvnews.vanderbilt.edu. (Chronicle of Higher Education 6/8/94 A16, reported in Edupage 6/9/94)
        • Coming Soon Newscasts on Your PC Intel and CNN have teamed up to test LAN TV, a system that turns a regular broadcast TV signal into a compressed digital data stream, capable of being received on regular 486-type desktop PCs. While Intel tests the technology, CNN will concentrate on determining what it is people want to watch on their computers, in order to develop a special corporate news service. (Investor's Business Daily 6/20/94 A4, reported in Edupage 6/21/94)
        • TV Chat America Online and Capital Cities/ABC will offer AOL subscribers the opportunity to tap into an online newswire, a celebrity chat, and interactive games from ABC Sports. ABC is the last of the Big Four broadcasters to wade into Cyberspace. (Wall Street Journal 7/7/94 B5, reported in Edupage 7/7/94)
        • Computer Banking Statistic Half of all the banking transactions at New York's Chemical Bank are now done on cash machines, the telephone or with personal computers. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 5/29/94 R9, reported in Edupage 5/29/94)
        • Electronic Government Benefits The federal government will start delivering public assistance benefits electronically over the next five years, and a nationwide system will replace welfare checks and food stamps by 1999. Following a pilot program in Maryland that reduced welfare fraud by 47% in the first year, it's expected that the new system will net $195 million a year in savings. (Wall Street Journal 6.1.94 A8, reported in Edupage 5/29/94)
        • Click and Win a Burger NBC and McDonald's are planning a promotional tie-in campaign this Fall which may include electronic cu- poning and click and win consumer components on America Online. (Advertising Age 5/23/94, reported in Edupage 6/2/ 94)

        The Legal Arena

        • Gimme Five ... And Get Your Hand Scanned for Customs Kiosks set up by the Immigration and Naturalization Service at JFK and Newark Airports allow you to zip through customs using an electronic hand reader to verify who you are. You can sign up to get your palm read and entered in the INS PASS system if you make at least three international flights into those airports per year. (Business Week 5.2.94 p. 132, reported in Edupage 4/28/94)
        • E-Mail Messages Released The University of Michigan has released copies of messages exchanged during a computer conference of the school's regents. The action was in response to requests from two newspapers, which claimed that messages passed among publicly elected officials are public information. (Chronicle of Higher Education 4/27/94 A26, reported in Edupage 4/28/94)
        • Electronic Copyright Grievance Filed A writer who conducted an interview with Fidel Castro in 1967 for Playboy has filed a grievance with the National Writers Union against the magazine, accusing it of electronic piracy, after the interview was transferred to CD-ROM. Playboy had sent the author a check for $100, which he deemed inadequate. (Wall Street Journal 4/27/94 B9, reported in Edupage 4/28/94)
        • Online Copyright Guidelines A White House committee has released a report recommending a series of refinements in current copyright laws with regard to electronic transfer of information. Among the recommendations are revising fair use rules to include digital and online works, and making it a crime to import, manufacture or distribute devices designed to defeat anti-copying systems. (Washington Post 7/7/94 D9, reported in Edupage 7/8/94)
        • Archaeologist Wins Internet Defamation Suit An archaeologist, formerly at the University of Western Australia, has won a lawsuit filed in Australia against an anthropologist, claiming comments made about him on an Internet bulletin board were defamatory. Damages equal to $28,000 were awarded after a psychiatrist testified to the plaintiff's anxiety and depression suffering caused by the remarks. (Chronicle of Higher Education 4/27/94 A26, reported in Edupage 4/28/94)
        • Ads (and Flames) on the Net After sending an unsolicited ad for his legal services to more than 9,000 Internet Usenet groups, a Phoenix lawyer got 30,000 replies, including thousands of flames [outraged messages] from persons who objected to his use of the Internet for unsolicited direct mail. Internet Direct, the lawyer's service provider, rescinded the lawyer's account. The lawyer's threatening a $250,000 lawsuit against Internet Direct and is planning to write a book about advertising on the Internet. (New York Times 4/19/94 C1, reported in Edupage 4/19/94)
        • Hacker-Proof Dallas Semiconductor Corp. has developed a microchip that it says will foil even the best computer hackers trying to break into corporate files. The chip, about the size of a dime, works the same way as a hotel security card or ATM card does, and an employee could not log on without it. (Investor's Business Daily, reported in Edupage 2/17/94)
        • Privacy Warning Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner warned that the information highway needs regulation to protect user privacy. In his recommendations, the Commissioner said legislative rules must address ethical questions of monitoring E-mail by employers and urged the development of security systems to prevent third parties from intercepting communications. (Ottowa Citizen 2/16/94 p. D6, reported in Edupage 2/17/94)
        • Privacy Facing Extinction? Warning that Canada's Blueprint for the Delivery of Government Services could be the harbinger of an end to the privacy of personal information, columnist Gordon Grant contends that as government departments broaden the scope of information they share, the inability to ensure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands increases proportionately. (Ottawa Sun 3/28/94 p. 12, reported in Edupage 3/29/ 94)
        • E-mail Eavesdropping One in five companies admits that it eavesdrops on its employees by searching computer files, voice mail or E-mail, but a spate of lawsuits is beginning to curb the habit. If a company plans on monitoring employees, it should tell them in advance to avoid legal trouble later. (Investor's Business Daily 4/19/94 A4, reported in Edupage 4/19/94)
        • Crime-Fighting on the Net Alert subscribers to online services geared toward collectibles rare books, baseball cards, stamps and coins have foiled a number of attempts to sell stolen items, and services specifically designed for fighting crime are forming. The Jeweler's Security Alliance will begin transmitting digital wanted posters of known jewel thieves through a privately run computer network. (Wall Street Journal 6/2/94 B2, reported in Edupage 6/ 2/94)
        • Cybercop A former New Jersey police officer now spends his time crusing for suspects in cyberspace and has been involved in dozens of criminal investigations, including a sting operation that nabbed a pedophile who lured young rape victims via a bulletin board service. (Tampa Tribune 6/8/94 BayLife 5, reported in Edupage 6/9/94)
        • Man Wanted on the Internet When the Okallosa County (FL) Sheriff's Office put a man wanted posting on the alt.internet. services and alt.culture.internet newsgroups, responses ranged from criticism of the posting to these particular newsgroups, to praise of the Sheriff's Office for yet another novel use of the Internet, to suggestions for creation of new newsgroups (alt.wanted, alt.unsolved-mysteries ...). ( Edupage 6/28/94)
        • Cyberporn is Prosecuted In two recent cases in Oklahoma and Texas, courts have convicted defendants for using electronic bulletin boards to distribute obscene material. In the Oklahoma case, defense attorneys argued that state obscenity laws don't apply to electronic devices such as CD-ROMs, claiming that what was on the disks was actually binary code. In the Texas case, U.S. Secret Service agents seized computers and electronic equipment from an electronic publisher. (Wall Street Journal 5/27/94 B3, reported in Edupage 5/29/ 94)
        • Man Charged in Electronic Stalking A Michigan man has been charged with breaking a state anti-stalking law for continuing to send E-mail to a woman after she and the police told him to stop. If convicted, he could be jailed for one year or fined $1,000. (St. Petersburg Times 5/27/94, reported in Edupage 5/29/94)
        • Cruel and Unusual Punishment A prison inmate who uses his time to file frivolous product liability lawsuits has had his computer taken away by the judge. The Legal Aid Society says the judge's sanctions are too harsh, although the prisoner will still be able to continue to handwrite his complaints against numerous companies, none of which (surprisingly?) are a computer hardware or software vendor. (New York Times 3/29/94, reported in Edupage 3/29/94)

        The Work Arena

        • Brains Over Muscle 1991 was the first year in which companies spent more on computing and communications gear than on industrial, mining, farm and construction machines. And today, a typical new automobile has $675 worth of steel and $782 worth of microelectronics. (Fortune 4/4/94 p. 25, reported in Edupage 3/22/94)
        • Telecommuting In 1990, there were an estimated 2 million telecommuters in this country. That number has increased to 7.8 million this year. And by the year 2001, there will be an estimated 30 million telecommuters. (NBC Nightly News 3/22/94, reported in Edupage 3/22/94)
        • Software Replaces Sportswriters A $100 software program called Sportswriter is capable of churning out reasonably good sports copy by intelligently stringing together words between facts. Some 80 small newspapers in the Midwest have purchased the program and are using it to cover high school sports events. (Wall Street Journal 3/29/94 A1, reported in Edupage 3/29/94)

        The Downside

        • Access to What? In the ongoing discussions over equal access to the information superhighway, it's often overlooked that transmission is only one component of that access, the others being computer hardware and software. Government officials have yet to suggest that Compaq offer a 'lifeline' computer for, say, $1 a month, or that Microsoft be required to give away Word for Windows. (Telecommunications Policy Review 4/29/94 p. 10, reported in Edupage 5/5/94)
        • E-Mail Bottlenecks Overstuffed mailboxes and oversized files are two of the biggest offenders in slowing E-mail to a snail-mail pace, according to Ferris Networks, a San Francisco-based E-mail research firm. Although the problem will be somewhat alleviated when ATM technology is fully implemented, the proliferation of more and bigger files will continue. Ferris' president anticipates an average post-compression message to be 100 kilobytes in size by 1998, up from 10K currently, with volume rising to 60 messages a day, up from 20-40 now. (Investor's Business Daily 4/18/94 A4, reported in Edupage 4/19/94)
        • Network Benefits, Network Risks Increasingly sophisticated networks will eventually have the whole country plugged into a single grid. Communications professor A.M. Noll at the University of Southern California warns that with the benefits of such a grid will come a risk that some software glitch could transmit an erroneous signal or traffic indication that would collapse the entire network, bringing telecommunications to a total halt in this country. (Forbes 4/25/94 p. 142, reported in Edupage 3/29/94)
        • Tranquility Hard to Find in Electronic Age I was just skiing in Vail, and they were offering cellular phones and pagers to use on the ski lift, says an astonished observer. Tranquility and solitude are getting harder to find in the electronic age, but one professor of communications is philosophical: These devices provide an opportunity for overworking, not a mandate. Workaholics have existed forever, with or without machines. (New York Times 4/25/94 B4, reported in Edupage 4/19/94)
        • Downside to Telework With five Canadian government departments experimenting with telework to shift jobs away from the office using information technology, unions representing public servants warn that it may result in longer working days without additional compensation. (Toronto Star 4/25/94 E1, reported in Edupage 4/19/94)
        • Will Internet be Paradise Lost? Author James Fallows predicts that as the Internet expands, something will have to give; either the government will stop paying, or politicians will notice that the government is paying and will impose controls, like those imposed by school boards on textbook content or by the FCC on radio and TV broadcasts. The Internet's low visibility era of subsidized innocence will end, and the network will become as complicated as anything else. (Atlantic Monthly July 94 p. 34, reported in Edupage 6/21/94)

        Miscellaneous

        • NII Report Released A report outlining the benefits and obstacles to using the information superhighway was released last week and the Commerce Department is requesting comments on the findings. Putting the Information Infrastructure to Work predicts the new data highway will improve the competitiveness of the U.S. manufacturing base; speed the efficiency of electronic commerce and business-to-business communications; improve health care delivery and help contain medical costs; promote access to the educational system; and enable government to dispense services to the public faster, more responsively and more efficiently. To order copies, call (202) 783-3238 and request NIST Special Publication 857. (BNA Daily Report for Executives 5/5/94 A10, reported in Edupage 5/8/94)
        • Trolling in Public Databases The government routinely scours its 4,000 databases looking for welfare cheats, draft dodgers, tax cheats, etc. The Clinton Administration's proposed Health Security Card, a smart card with personal information on individuals, would create a huge new government database with medical records on every citizen. (Investor's Business Daily 6/2/94 A1, reported in Edupage 6/2/94)
        • E-Mail at the White House Both the Bush and Clinton administrations have tried to restrict public access to White House E-mail, but later this year the National Security Agency will publish White House E-Mail, a book-length collection of E-mail messages. The book includes Iran-Contra affair communications to and from Oliver North, who used E-mail because he thought it could be easily deleted. One message from him reads: Oh lord. I lost the slip and broke one of the high heels. Forgive please. Will return the wig on Monday. (New York Magazine, 6/6/94 p. 20, reported in Edupage 6/5/94)
        • PC With TV, Phone, Radio, FAX Packard Bell will be offering personal computers that can double as radios, TVs, telephones and FAX machines. Priced at $1,000 $3,000, the systems will use Intel's 486 and Pentium microprocessors and will come with stereo speakers; Most will also have CD-ROM drives and include 27 software titles. The systems will have removable plastic panels that allow a consumer to make a fashion statement by adding splashes of colors such as teal or azure. This is like adding a tie to a suit, says a company executive. (New York Times 6/14/94, reported in Edupage 6/14/94)
        • Thoughts for All (or at Least 700) Occasions Computerized form letters have been written on 700 subjects to respond to mail sent to the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. There are robo compassion letters for people in declining health and a robo poetry letter thanking people who send in poetry. The letters are signed by an automatic pen. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 3/29/94 A 14, reported in Edupage 3/29/94)
        • Revising Family History DivorceX offers to expunge all traces of your ex-spouse in the family photo albums, using a popular software called Photostop. The proprietor scans the photo, erases the unwanted party's image, and reprints the picture all for $100-200 a pop. What if you get back together? No problem, He'll reinsert it by the same process. (Wall Street Journal 6/16/94 B1, reported in Edupage 6/16/94)
        • Auctions in the Electronic Marketplace It was just a matter of time... public auctions have now become dial-up affairs, with a computer-generated voice replacing the rhythmic patter of the auctioneer. The Automated Bidding System is built around four 486 PCs and specialized software. Bidders call in on an 800 number, and the automated system doles out updated information while registering bids and tracking the process. It even calls a customer back if he overbids by mistake. (Investor's Business Daily 5/4/94 A4, reported in Edupage 5/5/94)
        • For Computer Illiterates Only There's now a service for executives who receive E-mail but can't deal with computers. A New Jersey-based telephone company automatically faxes E-mail messages to subscribers, allowing them to read their mail the old-fashioned way on paper. (St. Petersburg Times 5/8/94 A8, reported in Edupage 5/8/94)
        • Snail Mail an Endangered Species? Canada's postal corporation is making preparations to join the info-highway. Its chair predicts that stamped mail likely will become extinct as electronic information replaces regular mail, delivering services by TV, telephone and computer. (Toronto Globe & Mail 6/3/94 B3, reported in Edupage 6/5/94)


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