It is impossible to imagine what the world would be like without the Internet. But to dream up what the global network itself will be like is quite possible. The main thing in the kaleidoscope of events and news is to discern the current vectors of technology development. Well, shall we try?
A bit of history
The progenitor of the Internet was created for military purposes. What was needed was a structure that would ensure stable communication between control centers in a nuclear war. But diplomacy prevailed, while the infrastructure and promising developments remained. On their basis, local networks began to be built, which simplified the exchange of data among the organization’s workstations.
The main breakthrough came in 1989, when Tim Bernes-Lee, in order to simplify the search and generalization of information, introduced several lines of code into ordinary documents, making them hypertext. Further implementation of the project led to the development of the HTTP protocol and the HTML language, without which the World Wide Web is simply impossible. It was these discoveries that created the Internet, made it available to a huge number of users around the world.
Naturally, the Internet, like any tool, is constantly being improved to meet growing needs. Yes, that’s the tool! After all, banal surfing is no longer enough, the World Wide Web has long been at the forefront of the development and support of technology, so over time its role will only increase. So what development vectors are seen today?
Heading for acceleration
Technology is advancing and services are multiplying, so there is a growing need for rapid exchange of information. The current point of network development is enough to make an online purchase or make a video call to another part of the world – the bandwidth of the channels is enough, as they say, “to the head”.
So why increase transmission speeds if everyone is happy with everything? This is where fantasy begins, though scientific and quite probable. The fact is that at this stage of technology development, high speeds are no longer needed by people, but by machines!
The era of the Internet of Things is coming.
Unmanned vehicles, copters of special services and delivery services are the first things that come to mind. Any more or less useful device of the future will require a network connection. Here, the main parameters of the 5G standard come in handy, with its high access speed, and, importantly, with its increased network capacity.
Quadcopter DJI Mavic Mini gray 32 699 *
Every year there will be more and more useful gadgets connected to the World Wide Web, so maybe in some ten years, humanity will be discussing the delights of the 6G protocol with might and main, and the younger generation will be sincerely surprised by our contemporaries who knew how to manage 3G and 4G.
6.9″ Smartphone Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 128 GB black
[8×2.7GHz, 2.5GHz, 2GHz, 12GB, Dual SIM, Dynamic AMOLED, 3200×1440, Camera 108+48+12MP, NFC, 5G, GPS, 5000mAh]
94 999 *
146 5
Smartphone Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Pro 256 GB black
[8×2.2 GHz, 1.8 GHz, 8 GB, 2 SIM, AMOLED, 2340×1080, camera 108+12+20+2+5 MP, NFC, 4G, GPS, FM]
72 4
Course towards decentralization
If Tim Bernes-Lee himself spoke about the fact that creating the Internet, he saw it differently from what network evolution and capital made it, it is worth thinking hard. The Internet was created so that everyone had equal opportunities. But in fact, unfortunately, there are several powerful centers through which network traffic passes and collects information about us. Thanks to this, search engines constantly offer us the next “necessary” products. And it’s not far from the manipulation of consciousness!
Therefore, questions begin to torment, but what does the Internet really know about you? And as sad as it is, there are actually a lot of them.
It’s getting harder and harder to stay anonymous online. All this data is usually stored in one place, in the hands of one company or group of companies. This is where the main vulnerability lies. A successful hack or a man-made leak – and all the ins and outs of the user ends up with third parties. And how they will dispose of it – one can only guess.
A global failure in the operation of such a service will also lead to an information collapse and the impossibility of receiving the service in a timely manner. It is especially “painful” if it affects the sphere of finance.
Not only the ideologists of the World Wide Web, but also the leaders of world powers spoke about the need for change. Decentralization of the Internet, moving away from client-server technologies towards completely different algorithms for identifying, processing and storing information, especially private information.
One of the options for decentralization can be blockchain technology or algorithms similar to it (xblockchain, function, etc.). A network based on them cannot be “broken”, because not one powerful server is responsible for the safety of confidential information, but ordinary user PCs that are part of the network structure. Moreover, each of them stores only a small part of the necessary information. You can read more about the blockchain in an article on the DNS Club .
Heading for accessibility
Although the Internet is a matter of course for many, there are still plenty of places on earth where it does not exist. And in the new, global world, it is needed everywhere.
Elon Musk’s ambitious project, called StarLink, can solve the problem. The essence is simple – providing broadband access to the network from anywhere in the world. To do this, from 12,000 to 42,000 communication satellites need to be launched into near-Earth orbit. Now the project is in the stage of forming a constellation of satellites. Just over 500 are currently in orbit.
If you dream up a little on this topic, then we can assume that this project is aimed more at space exploration than at providing wireless services around the world. Who knows, maybe these satellites are the first swallows in a long chain of creating stable communication channels with the first colonizers of the Moon or even Mars.
course for renewal
Another milestone that we will surely see is the Internet generation change. As already mentioned, the era of the Internet of things is coming. The current Web 2.0 protocol is “tailored” more for humans than for machines. Therefore, the next generation of the Internet, Web 3.0, will correct this deficiency and will be understandable to inanimate objects and artificial intelligence.
The time is not far off when fully robotic multilingual translators will appear that are not inferior to professional specialists, and instead of intrusive advertising of all sorts of things, the network will be focused on providing a full chain of services, including both on-line and off-line components of the service.
The appearance in the foreseeable future of a functioning semantic web is only a matter of time. Such an add-on over the existing World Wide Web, in addition to the usual human-readable tags, will carry signs suitable for machine processing. That is, things will also be able to draw information from the network and share it.
Heading for safety
As already mentioned, it is becoming more and more difficult to maintain anonymity every year. This is due to the growing threats of global terrorism and cybercrime. So we can assume the creation of systems and algorithms that evaluate the user’s behavior based on his actions, analyze and identify hidden threats. Naturally, all this will be at the mercy of artificial intelligence. But the decision-making mechanism – I would like to see in the hands of a person. How can one not recall here the “Fifth Element” with its peremptory sentencing by artificial intelligence?
So, most likely the Internet will become a structure accessible at high speeds anywhere in the world, both to people and machines. And also a network shrouded in a semantic web with the rudiments of artificial intelligence. Well, how will it really be? Wait and see!
