The future of cyberspace

Hello everyone,

I was just sitting here surfing a bit and a thought came to me, where will the internet be as we know it by the end of the decade and beyond.

What will be the advances?, are there some things currently on the horizon now?, and how will they affect us good or bad, I'm not too much of a technical person, I kind of keep track of some computer-related things but for the people who live and breathe this stuff day after day, what are your thoughts?, and how do you see the software and hardware we use currently change for the future?


Thanks

James

 

I suspect virtual reality will get LOTS better. It will have the basics easily, sight and sound, and it's not too far out to have tactal. Smell and taste? Maybe. Thing is, if this becomes standard it will put a whole new twist on forums, not to mention <ahem> other sites that are already popular without the new twists.

Where it would really take off is if they can figure a way or "turning off" your voluntary muscles, while keeping the illusion. It would have a lot of scary, dramatic, and exciting possibilities. How about "wearing" a droid body for example, if it were realistic enough it could put a whole new meaning on telecommuting, for example.

TV on demand is already here, that will only get better.

The tech for higher bandwidths is already here. One of the things I suspect caused the tech bubble to burst is fiber optic companies were routinely doubling or better the bandwidths of standard fiber optic with only a minimal outlay. Long distance is already free for a lot of people, it will only get better. I worked for Alcatel though the bust, we had a 40Gigbyte system, and had figured out how to merge 40 of these channels onto one fiber similar to a RF cable, the lasers were different colors and could be tuned to a individual reciever, one of 40, all 40 GB each.

 

As Bill said TV on demand will become more practical as bandwidth increases,you need around an 8meg downstream connection to stream HDTV,once enough people have the connections and money can be made it'll become commonplace

One of the things I'm sure will happen is regulation of the internet and the abolishment of web anonimity,a few days ago in the UK a guy was sent to jail for posting racist comments on a memorial of a murdered coloured teenager

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1889311,00.html#article_continue

Whether he's a racist or a Troll many people will probably cheer that he was sent to jail,I'm not so sure,to what extent will that effect how openly people will express thier views on the internet in the future I guess acountability for ones actions on the internet is a topic for another thread

What I'd really like to see are Latencies come down,much more that bandwidth,it'd be great if American and UK gamers could paly against each other on a level playing field

 

For the future, all I want is the transporter from Star Trek, so I can visit friends abroad more easily!

 

One thing we can be sure of is more government and MS interference on how we access the Net.

Look at China's restriction on what Google can do, as an example, for government restrictions.

Look at M$ WGA for how MS wish to control us.

BTW, all my MS stuff is legal. Bazza

 

Watch out for Virgin's aim to be able to fly from the UK to Australia in an hour, with their new proposed craft, if you can afford the fare of course. Bazza

===

 

The teleporter is next centuries news. I wonder how expensive a humanform bot would be to build, if it didn't need an AI.

Whole new tourism opertunities would open up, visit Paris for an hour, or Oz.

Then there would be the virtual realms. There are people already addicted to Everquest, this could be the drug of the 21st Century.

 

Well 'Internet2', or the Abilene Network , has some interesting innovations, regarding the www and high speed networking, some of which may be implimented for the general public in the near future. It is optical fiber based.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2

http://lsr.internet2.edu/

 

Stumbled over this. We may be closer to this than I thought! But I doubt they will manage to transport me before I kick the bucket... I'd better not wait for it, and go and book a plane ticket if I want to see my friends within a reasonable time!

They'd have to re-print the travellers brouchures!