On the Road to the Information Superhighway

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

        You've heard the term, you've groaned at the puns, but what exactly is the Information Superhighway ? Good question.

        For all intents and purposes, at this point in time, the Information Superhighway and the Internet are synonymous. The Information Superhighway is a marketing term that was coined to promote the High Performance Computing Act of 1990, authored by then-Senator Al Gore.

        Using the highway analogy, you might think of the Internet as I-35, and various other computer networks and services as access roads and feeder highways. As the popular weekend newspaper insert USA Weekend ([usaweekend@aol.com] January 21-23, 1994, p. 4) put it:

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        On the information road map, such commercial online companies as Prodigy, CompuServe and America Online are analogous to private toll roads, offering users a preset array of information services for a monthly fee. Some online services offer on ramps to the Internet, an immense world-wide web of computer networks that is more like an interstate highway with exits to international destinations.

        Metamorphosis

        When USA Weekend does a story on something, you know it has arrived in the mainstream. When things become mainstream they usually metamorphose for better and/or worse from what they were before they were discovered. This is especially true of the Internet.

        The scholars and researchers who once considered the Internet their personal domain have been joined by bikers and businessmen, kindergartners and nursing home residents. This has caused some cultural clashes that have been interesting, upsetting, amusing, and enlightening, sometimes all at once.

        What is the Internet changing into?

        The Internet is becoming whatever it will be like when there really is an Information Superhighway.

        What will it be like?

        Laws passed and technologies invented and embraced today will determine what the Information Superhighway will be like in the future. It's all up to us.

        Indications of the Future

        The article on the right offers some indications of the way things seem to be heading technologically, politically, and socially. Perhaps this will shed some light on what the future holds for the travelers on the Information Superhighway.

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