The Pew Research Center asked a set of professors, businessmen, and readers of "technology-oriented listservs" to imagine the Internet of 2025. (Source in PDF and HTML.)
Some respondents speculated that there would be amplification of known trends: "ambient" networks (sensors, cameras, phones/tracking devices) that are increasingly integrated into work and social life, ongoing disruption of traditional "content" industries, and the continued growth of analytics/surveillance ("tagging, databasing, and intelligent analytical mapping of the physical and social realms.") Of course, networks "accurately predict[ing] our interests and weaknesses" implies the loss of personal privacy, first to governments and corporations, but eventually to any interested party or social engineer.
Others predicted decentralization and fragmentation self-forming mesh networks, darknets, and proliferating incompatible national/corporate algorithms. Your freedom would be circumscribed by the ideology of your network's owner.
I put the question to you, O People of Soylent. What futures do you foresee? What trends or pathologies does the Pew report minimize or neglect? How can or should *we* influence the Internet's direction in the next decade?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Sunday April 13 2014, @05:08AM
Seems like this invocation is either backwards, addressed to those who no longer can hear.
But in any case, Brazil! The movie, not the country, wax, or nuts. In the future, if you want something fixed, you will have to hire a plumber, off the books, to fix the network. One of the funnier dystopian films, almost as good as "A Boy and His Dog", which is funny for different reasons.
(Score: 2) by lothmordor on Monday April 14 2014, @07:02AM
Ah, my favourite dystopia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B61_5sRoBI [youtube.com]