MIST 7500 - Fall 2013; C3 - Internet Future

I watched videos of Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee (both insiders of the design and implementation of the internet as we know it) and Kevin Kelly (Founder and Editor of Wired Magazine) as they discussed their visions of the future and the internet. All three endorsed cloud computing as the future storage protocol of computer systems, and the integration of data into our daily lives (roughly called “The One”). All things will be linked together by data. We will be identified by this data and able to use it to advance our society. It will be one big “open source society”.

Vint Cerf also touched on sensor networks and the role they will play in this future lifestyle. The mundane tasks of daily life will be automated by pre-determined settings. Households will be more efficient because of this. He thinks this will allow people to focus on other aspects of life and society.

These videos were very informative. All three men have a similar macro-vision of data and society in the future. I can see where integration of big data would simplify our lives. We would have accurate data at our fingertips. I do have some concerns with this “open source lifestyle”. To allow strangers to become intimate with our personal information poses a multitude of security and safety risks. In our current society and internet, criminals steal identities and anything of value with the click of a mouse. In general, people will have to become more enlightened and less savage for this future society to work.

*Image taken from Tim Berner-Lee presentation @ TED 2009.

Until next time...