Internet Technologies
By John Clyman
The constantly evolving Web is being driven by ever-growing human needs.
Five years ago, the Internet was just a faint flicker at the periphery of most people's perception.Today, the Net connects nearly 400 million users worldwide and is an integral part of how we work, play, communicate, and conduct commerce. Already, we use it in ways that seemed inconceivable in 1995, the year Netscape went public and Amazon.com opened its virtual doors.
The next five years promise further dramatic change, primarily in the technologies and applications that are helping extend the Internet's reach and that make it an even more pervasive--and productive--part of everyday business and life. Here are some of the areas that will be most influential in shaping the future of the Net.
The Pervasive Net
Today, the vast majority of Internet-connected devices are traditional computers--either PCs or servers. That balance is poised to shift: with cellular phones blazing the trail, many consumer-electronics devices will soon become Internet-enabled. For wireless devices, the key enabling technology is WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), which allows the devices to view specially formatted Internet content. Companies including Ericsson, Motorola, and Nokia have already shipped millions of WAP-compatible cell phones, and estimates suggest that as many as 100 million wap-enabled devices will be sold worldwide by year's end. Other wireless hand-held devices, such as the Palm VII, are also gaining appeal.
Content and services for these devices are emerging rapidly. High-traffic sites, including Amazon.com, Yahoo!, and zdnet, already provide wireless content and services; PinPoint has developed a search engine technology that scours WML (Wireless Markup Language, the XML-based, wireless equivalent of HTML) documents; and companies like AnyDevice.com and mobileid provide tool sets to help companies create wireless applications and services.
Although wireless devices offer go-anywhere convenience, they're far from the only consumer-electronics gear that provide Internet connectivity. Expect a profusion of home audio and entertainment devices--such as D-Link's Internet Radio and Sony's Playstation 2--that provide at least special-purpose Internet access. The longer-term trend is clear: within a few years, just about every device that contains a microprocessor--from your car to your digital camera--will have some sort of Internet connection.
There's currently no accepted standard for how all these devices will interoperate. Sun has championed Jini, a Java-based technology that lets devices plug seamlessly into a network, identify one another, and work together. But to date, Jini has gained little traction. Microsoft, naturally, has outlined solutions of its own: there's Universal Plug and Play, which is supposed to get all your devices talking to one another, plus a far-reaching platform known as Microsoft.NET that aims to make information and applications accessible anywhere, on any kind of device.
Two key technologies underlying Microsoft.NET are XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). The latter is a specification that was originally drafted in 1998 by DevelopMentor, Microsoft, and UserLand Software; it's now been submitted as a proposed standard to the World Wide Web Consortium.
The arrival of all these Net-ready devices will fuel breathtaking growth in home networking. Technologies such as the HomePNA (Home Phoneline Networking Association) 2.0 standard (which allows 10Mbps connections over existing telephone wiring) the 802.11b 11Mbps wireless LAN standard, and the increasingly pervasive, high-speed, always-on connections of DSL and cable have provided the foundation to build upon. As a result, the Yankee Group predicts that home networks will mushroom from some 650,000 in existence today to more than 10 million by 2003.
The Internet will also reach into new corners of the office environment. Voice over IP gateways will blur the distinction between data and voice networks, and wireless LANs based on 802.11b technology will make it easier to roam about the office and stay connected all the time.
