The Internet in one picture. (by Collegehumor)
The Internet was invented in the late 1950s for military purposes, and it has since evolved into a beautiful network connecting businesses, individuals and the world together on a seamless, convenient platform. I am personally a huge user of the Internet- it is virtually impossible for me to get through my day-to-day life without being connected to Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and more.
We have come so far developing the Internet into what it is today. We've put shopping, diaries, TV content, music videos on the web. Now, the question is: what will happen in the future? Is the Internet already as good as it will ever be?
I did some digging around and researched on what possible future endeavors and shenanigans users will be up to, and got some pretty interesting findings. Therefore, here are
Of the approximately 7 billion people in the world, about 2.4 billion have access to the Internet. That's about 34.3% of the world's population. When I saw the statistics, I was a little shocked. There are still billions of people that barely have enough to eat, let alone have access to a computer, but the Internet is so widely used and mandatory in our daily lives that it is astonishing that only less than a third of the world have access to the Internet. (Source)
However, with industrialization moving at such a fast pace, we would probably be seeing farmers uploading seeds on their farms via AIs or robots in 10 to 20 years. Fun fact: in the USA, there are 2 million farmers but 60 million virtual farmers on FarmVille worldwide (about 1% of the world's population).
2) Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Broadband will be even faster than before. Currently, the country with the fastest broadband is South Korea. South Koreans have access to the Internet everywhere they go. I can attest to that- during my holiday in Seoul this August, I spotted 'free wifi' signs in many public places. If you go to a restaurant, it is likely that they will post their Wi-Fi passwords on their walls, or in the receipt after you purchase a snack or drink from a cafe. Even the tiny guesthouse I lived in had faster Wi-Fi than I had at home.
I recently read an old news report from 2007 about a 75-year-old Swedish woman with the fastest residential Internet connection in the world. It runs at 40 gigabits per second on a fiber optic connection. She can (get this) download a full-length movie in less than two seconds. My blu-ray Pacific Rim took me about four days to finish downloading. Unfortunately, she only uses it to "read web-based newspapers".
In comparison, South Korea's average speed peaks at 14.2 megabits per second. It's like comparing a cheetah to a sea slug.
3) Avatars
No, not the blue Na'vi that ran around half naked in that 2009 movie- but close. Perhaps we would soon be using avatars or surrogates to communicate or get through our daily lives. If it all seems fairly foreign to you, be reminded that we've already got virtual classrooms that allow us to explore online campuses, talk to our friends and professors and attend lectures on the Internet without even having to get up to put on pants.
Personally, I think that if we were to truly replace our real selves with surrogate AI bodies to minimize human contact, it would probably be the end of the world (watch that Bruce Willis film Surrogates and you'll see why). The only reason we should do that would be if the surface of the Earth were so polluted (getting there...) that it we would have to live in little pods as it would be dangerous for us to go out with our real bodies.
4) Space exploration
I would love to see this in the near future. We've already got Google Earth, a nifty software that allows us to explore the whole world- even places like North Korea- but we almost always choose to look at the top of our own houses instead.
Now we even have Google Moon and Google Mars, which sounds very interesting and has lots of potential for development but looks a bit disappointing right now. Firstly, Google Mars looks like this:
I was expecting aliens.
I didn't know what this software was for, but it's a good step for mankind. If we are able to map out Mars, perhaps we could start putting things or people on Mars. Astronauts that explore the planet while talking via a live feed? Maybe!
Google Moon looks a little more promising, though it really just shows the places where different Apollo missions have landed.
5) The next dimension
With so many things happening on the Internet and the staggering growth of information, consumers would love to get easy access to all sort of networks and information on the go. Forget tablets, laptops and smartphones that are only useful with a working Wi-Fi or 3G connection. The future would probably see instant, free connection. Soon, Generation Y would be the pioneers of the sentence, "Remember back when we had to look for free Wi-Fi or risk exploding our bill for 3G connection?"
But of course, with such easy access to the Internet, the lack of privacy is a huge concern. We now already have our social lives displayed all over a part of the Internet we call Facebook. With dimension-defying tech such as Google Glass, everyone would literally be able to see every single part of your day-to-day life.
That aside, if this all comes true, we'd all be looking like this:
A little too good to be true, but we can dream!
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