Internet: The Road Ahead

Asoke K. Laha
President & MD
Interra IT

Internet is one of the most memorable developments in human history of innovation and thought revolution. Internet is no longer considered as a purely technology subject. It has become a multidimension, multipurpose product and a service combined with societal, economic, commercial, cultural and political undertones.

It is intriguing to know how the tech gurus view the Internet of the future.

According to Steve Case, Co-Founder of AOL: Someday, it would be great if instead of being email, it would just be called mail. Instead of being e-commerce, it would just be called commerce. Just because it has become so ubiquitious that it is just taken for granted, as we take for granted electricity or water or other kinds of utilities.

Ryan Ozimek, President of Open Source Matters: I think where the future of the Internet is going is more mobile, more focussed on the cloud, and more about building really easy-to-use-platforms that people can use to build the next generation of software that has not even crossed our minds yet.

Can we look more specifically into the probable trends of future Internet awaiting to catch us by surprise.

a. Global information and communication: Internet is expected to take us from cluster or group mode to a total global integrated mode of information sharing and usage.

b. Virtual reality applications to touch the sky: VOIP is still undergoing revolution and videophone technology is emerging. We foresee a totally revolutionized cloud computer and mobile sphere emerging as significant part of the future Internet.

c. There will be vast changes in bandwidth, wireless and grid.

d. Finally, there should be an empowerment through the power of information for the masses, the economically depressed communities which may usher in a new kind of revolution in the world vastly different from our historical memorabilia: French Revolution in 1789, Russian Revolution in 1921 and the Red Star over China in the 1940s.

Why talk in political terms alone. The future Internet technology is going to to bring out something for society which in value terms can possibly be compared with something like discovery of fire or invention of the wheel.

For the next decade of Internet growth, I think the mobile technology will take the front seat. Mobile has already been replacing standalone system or laptop to a significant degree. The elements of live, dynamic, interactive interfaces are developing fast. Graphics and multimedia applications are revolutionizing and getting integrated with mobile application systems. 3D and animation are getting radically upscaled and used for entertainment and commerce.

The impact of all this is going to be phenomenal in the applied fields of research and development, surgery and medical sciences, telecom, all kinds of entertainment and edutainment industries and various day-to-day utility areas in the life of the common people.