Week 7: "Internet" Readings

The assigned article from AccessScience provides more than just a basic overview of the internet and how it operates. The article covers the background and history of the development of the internet quite effectively. It presents the internet as an evolution or progressive development of other media technologies and electronic sources, such as newspapers and magazines and identifies that the internet is proven to be so “versatile,” and in turn, this makes it powerful. Current users that have grown up in the age of the internet can testify these facts. The internet is used constantly and for a variety of uses/practices. Its continuous growth, even in the past decade, has demonstrated the effect that the enhancement of technological features, protocols, connection speed, and communication of the internet has had on user capabilities in many facets. The following two sources focus on the prospective capabilities of the internet in the future.

This second article addresses the question of whether the current research being conducted is enough to progressively influence in the internet industry needs for the future. The article discusses the concept of an incremental or progressive model and identifies the economic and social factors that influence the needs and expectations for future communications systems, which was the theme for a joint workshop held by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in January of 2007. The article presents observations made by the author, which include the relationships between the internet and economic and social theory, a discussion of the argument for anonymity of use of the internet, and observations of the social implications of a future internet. Several of these uses are discussed in the AccessScience reading, as well. This article presents a series of relevant questions that aid the reader in understanding the reflections made during the NSF and OECD joint workshop in 2007. These questions are quite thoughtful and their responses are detailed. The article addresses several important aspects regarding the future of the internet, such as lessons to be learned and improvements that can be made to improve the efficiency of inter-networking, and the challenges presented by each reflection.

This video provides a brief, yet detailed, overview of how the internet works. It is much simpler than the AccessScience reading. This source demonstrates the application of internet connections in a straightforward manner, using line diagrams and graphics for representation. It is even able to explicitly describe how “packets” of information are transferred across the internet (i.e. picture e-mails or Facebook photo albums). The source claims that by watching this video, one becomes part of the ten percent of people that understand the internet. The video uses analogies familiar to the viewer (i.e. candy wrapped in layers to describe the workings and relationships of various routers). It is short and therefore, a quick watch, and provides enough information for the average internet user to understand the workings of internet.