Imagineering the Future of the Internet: Sketches from the Year 2010

Abstract

Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." So proclaimed Popular Mechanics magazine in 1949. The history of technology forecasting is littered with the wreckage of predictions gone awry. Not even a Thomas Edison or a Bill Gates can hit the mark every time. So why should a view of the Internet's future, painted today, not provoke laughter 10 years from now? One assurance lies in a new engineering standard, already adopted, which will reshape the form and line of the Internet in the years to come. We can detect the approximate color and hue by studying the uses that people currently make of the Internet and thinking about how the usage concepts might apply in a more technologically advanced environment. With one's fingers on the right elements, it is possible to sketch a view of the Internet's future that will prove accurate, at least in broad outline. What will ordinary users encounter on the Net in 2010? What business models are likely to thrive in that environment? This article addresses these questions and presents bold ideas for next-generation Internet services from exciting companies already at work building the future. The new standard, Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) was first devised in 1995 and endorsed by an Internet task force in 1998. Most significant players (Cisco, Microsoft) are already testing equipment and connections that conform to IPv6 on a testbed called the 6bone, a virtual network layered on top of today's IPv4-based Internet. The migration to IPv6 is expected to be gradual, something that will take place over the next 5-10 years, and the two standards will coexist during that time and beyond. Most observers believe that the Internet will run out of addresses in a few years if nothing is done. Because the Net was originally designed to link a few researchers and not to be a mass medium, the patchwork IPv4 addressing solutions (NAT) are problematic. IPv6 upgrades the data packet address space from 32-bits to 128-bits, exponentially increasing the number of unique IP addresses available. A prime use of IPv6 addressing capability will be embedded systems – placing microprocessors in every device imaginable, from refrigerators to gas pumps, and linking them to the Internet for control and information gathering purposes. Thus the Internet will become the network for millions upon millions of intelligent devices. Wind River Systems has developed graphical Web-browsing capabilities for smart phones, cable TV set-top boxes, car navigation systems and other devices. In 1998, NCR demonstrated a microwave oven with a touch-screen front panel allowing users to bank, shop and check e-mail while nuking their couscous. The same year another manufacturer announced a smart refrigerator that monitors its own contents and automatically orders replacements. Other home uses of embedded systems will include pacemakers and vital sign monitors linked to hospitals, lawn sprinklers that check the weather forecast before turning themselves on and cars that detect failing parts and e-mail their owners. Commuters will control the heat and light at home from their cars. In the office, every printer and copier will be able to send output to other continents. Gas pumps will stream video from CNN, vending machines will signal when it is time to replace the Orangina and manufacturers will send software upgrades to machine tools on factory floors in several countries at the push of a button. Vauxhall Motors in the U.K. has a Web site featuring traffic reports updated every 40 seconds from electronic road sensors all over England. This is just a glimpse of the services that Net-linked embedded systems will provide by the year 2010. People in networks currently have problems trying to connect their laptops to the Net in field offices, other cities or even just down the hall. With ‘static’ addressing, network administrators have to configure new addresses manually. The supposed fix, ‘dynamic’ addressing (DHCP), does not alw