[kictanet] U.N. conference ponders Internet's future

[alice]

U.N. conference ponders Internet's future
Jack Chang | McClatchy Newspapers

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/v-print/story/21582.html

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - When more than 1,700 technology experts from 
around the world envision the Internet's future, they see cars and 
household appliances that are online, wireless Internet networks in 
remote African villages and astronauts e-mailing one another from 
different corners of outer space.

Such visions of the future were trumpeted at a landmark U.N. Internet 
Governance Forum to plan the next stages of one of the most 
revolutionary communication tools in history. Participants can't make 
binding decisions, but can lay the groundwork for future policy.

Many of the government officials, technology experts and other 
trendsetters at the conference, which ended Thursday, said the 
Internet has only now hit its stride. Key to its future, many said, 
will be bringing online the four-fifths of the globe that still lacks 
Internet access, as well as combating cybercrime and other malicious 
uses of the network.

The next generation of technology is on its way and will make the 
Internet an even more integral part of people's lives, said Vinton 
Cerf, a U.S. computer engineer and one of the fathers of the Internet.

He's now chief Internet evangelist to technology giant Google and 
remains a pioneer. One of his side projects is helping the National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration build an interplanetary network 
that would let astronauts e-mail each other without routing their 
messages through Earth.

"Wherever you are, you'll have the potential to get all this 
information, really all of the world's knowledge," Cerf said. "If you 
don't take advantage of this information available to you and others 
do, you'll have a hard time competing."

Holding up his BlackBerry, Cerf said that such mobile devices would 
soon become the main portal to the network, with global positioning 
systems that tell users where they are and what's around them, no 
matter where they are on the planet.

He also said that molecular-scale computing would become the norm as 
conventional technology bumps into the laws of physics that limit how 
quickly processors run and how compact they can be.

Molecular computing means harnessing the computing power of DNA and 
other biological material to run computers tens of thousands of times 
faster than those with today's conventional processors.

For billions of people in the developing world, however, just getting 
online would be an improvement, said John Dada, the program director 
of a nonprofit Nigerian anti-poverty agency.

More than 4 billion people aren't online, and many of them have never 
sent an e-mail or accessed a Web site, he said. Only 4 percent of 
Africans are online, compared with about four-fifths of U.S. 
residents.

"There is absolute awareness of the Internet in the world," Dada 
said. "The hardware is the problem."

-- 
================================================================

Mark Graham

SVP of Technology, iVillage Inc., an NBC Universal company
General Manager, Astrology.com

http://www.ivillage.com

Office: (415) 447-6193 Ext. 830 * Cell: (917) 697-0110
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