A team from the University of California, Los Angeles led by Len Kleinrock didn’t foresee youtube.com where anyone can post videos of varying themes and quality, games played online by thousands of players from across the globe all at once, and letters sent to anyone anywhere in the world at the speed of a single breath.
Kleinrock and his team simply sought to put up a system that would allow people to exchange information as freely as possible. They sure got their wish, if not in the ultra-liberal manner that it is now.
Internet innovations are being formulated as quickly as people can think them up. But it is not a bed of roses for the medium. Hacking and government censorship disrupt the flow of ideas and operations.
“There is more freedom for the typical Internet user to play, to communicate, to shop,” said Jonathan Zittrain, who co-founded Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. “On the worrisome side, there are some longer-term trends that are making it much more possible for information to be controlled.”
But if the Internet has reached near-middle age, there is no reason it will not be able to celebrate its 100th birthday with more innovations, creating joy to users whose variety of reasons are as many as the number of today’s websites.
[via yahoo.com]
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