Mike it takes some research but I will assure that Nextel would fit perfectly into the AOL family.
Boston Herald
January 24, 1999
Tomorrow's Net Could Catch You Anywhere
By: Mark Mueller
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You're at the office when the e-mail arrives.
The milk has gone bad, the message informs you. Oh, and you're out of eggs. Please pick some up on the way home.
Your spouse, maybe, offering a friendly reminder? Not quite.
This e-mail comes courtesy of your refrigerator, which keeps track of its contents via a bar-code scanner and handily sounds the alarm over the Internet when it's time to restock.
As farfetched - and potentially annoying - as that scenario might appear, experts on technology and the Internet say it's only a matter of time before your appliances get a mind of their own.
And the new smarts won't be limited to the once-dumb machines in your kitchen.
Connectivity will be the watchword of the new millennium, experts say, with machines large and small in constant communication with one another - and with you - over the Internet.
Want to turn up the heat in your house from the road? Simple. Pull out your wireless personal assistant - a powerful computer small enough to fit in your hand - and punch in your desires.
The wonders won't end there.
Videophones, now in some use but saddled by technical difficulties, will soon allow the masses to communicate face to face no matter how far apart they are.
Internet-based virtual reality will take the concept a step further, allowing people to don sensor-packed gloves and masks for the ultimate on-line experience. Reach out and touch someone, indeed.
On-line commerce, now but a fraction of all transactions conducted, will bring us ever-closer to the long-promised paperless society, experts say, as first businesses and then consumers become increasingly comfortable with keystroke purchases.
On-line banking and bill-paying, which currently draw only a hardy few, will be the norm.
And voting, still an antiquated affair in hulking, decades-old booths, will at last be modernized, with point-and-click ballot casting over the Net.
Prognosticators say such advances are a matter of not if but when, and they say America is likely to see them sooner rather than later - some within five years, others within 15.
"We're definitely in the middle of a revolution," said Merrill Warkentin, a professor of Management Information Systems at Northeastern University's College of Business Administration. "The Internet will pervade many activities we can't even imagine at this point."
But plenty of people do imagine, and what they see is a force that eventually will change the way people live, work and communicate.
"This has got the potential to change our culture dramatically," said Martin Burack, executive director of the Internet Society in Reston, Va. "It's already starting to transform our culture, but we're only in the first phase of it. We're still three to five years away from making significant changes in the way we do business and run our lives."
Some people, Burack predicts, will fight that change tooth and nail, and will detest it when it arrives.
"Everyone's going to be in constant communication," he said. "You'll be carrying around mini-PCs or Dick Tracylike watches. You won't be able to get away from anything, and some people won't be able to stand that."
Perhaps, but such fears aren't doing anything to slow Internet growth.
Once the province of techno-geeks and academics, the Internet has exploded in the 1990s, with an estimated 140 million people on line worldwide.
According to figures provided by the, Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington think thank that recently conducted a study on Internet growth, about 23 percent of America's 100 million households were connected to the Net in 1998, up from about 8 percent in 1995.
The White House has released slightly higher estimates for 1998, in the 25 to 30 percent range.
By 2001, the Progressive Policy Institute projects, more than 40 percent of American households will be on line, with an estimated growth rate of 5 percent a year thereafter.
Robert Atkinson, who heads the institute's technology and new economy project, predicts that when the figure hits 60 percent, probably in 2005, life as Americans now know it will begin to slip away.
"That's when you'll see major societal change," Atkinson said. "Now we're running a parallel system, in the real world and in the cyber world."
When the majority of people accept the new technology, he said, they will make most of their purchases on the Internet, cutting out the middleman and shrinking - or outright eliminating - the need for such jobs as travel agent.
Business-to-business transactions and orders will be conducted almost entirely on line, Atkinson said, as will banking.
For the moment, electronic commerce remains in its infancy.
American consumers spent a mere $2.6 billion on line in 1997. By contrast, Wal-Mart sold $118 billion in goods that year. But Internet sales are on the rise. Last year's holiday season alone drew an estimated $5 billion in sales as more people dared to buy on line.
That figure doesn't count business-to-business dealings, the largest segment of Internet commerce.
Atkinson's study found the Internet economy, which includes business and consumer sales, amounted to an estimated $72 billion in 1998, up from $15.5 billion in 1996. By 2001, he said, the Internet economy is expected to reach $350 billion, making it a certain contender.
"It's still only a tiny percentage (of total commerce), but the growth curve is so totally out there," Northeastern's Warkentin said.
Commerce might lead the revolution, but it won't be the flashiest part of it.
Eye-popping, gee-whiz gadgets straight out of science fiction will almost certainly capture the world's imagination.
That smart refrigerator, for instance, might be available in just five years, with wide distribution in as little as 10 years, said Brian O'Shaughnessy, policy director at the Washington-based Internet Alliance.
Videophones will be in homes from South Boston to Seattle within a decade, he said, while on-line voting will come to fruition within 10 to 15 years.
Burack, of the Internet Society, gives Internet-based virtual reality a 10-year window, with wider distribution in 15 years.
Voice-recognition software, which is already fairly accurate and getting better, could make the keyboard obsolete in a decade as well, O'Shaughnessy said.
Within five years, he and others said, computers will come equipped with swipe readers for smart cards, multifunction cards that are a combination credit card, bank card and stored-value card.
"It's mind-blowing how fast (the Internet) is moving," O'Shaughnessy said. "We are dealing with a medium that has done in five years what television took 50 years to do. The possibilities are endless."
Graphic; Future of the Internet
In the not-too-distant future, we will stay in touch not only with one another but also with our banks, our government and even our refrigerators using wireless personal assistants - powerful computers small enough to hold in one hand. By 2005, experts predict, life as we now know it will begin to slip away.
HOME
A bar-code scanner in your refrigerator will help alert you when it's time to restock, and you'll adjust the temperature of your house from inside your car.
VOTING
The Net will let you cast your ballot not only for peoples' choice awards but for U.S. presidents with a simple point-and-click.
SHOPPING
By 2001, the Internet economy, including both business and consumer sales, is expected to reach $350 billion, up from an estimated $72 billion this year.
TRAVEL
The new technology will cut out the middle man - you'll book your own flights, hotel accommodations and tours with the push of a button.
VIDEO
Long-awaited videophones will at last become commonplace, making it necessary to shower and shave before calling that special someone.
WORK
It's not all a bed of roses - being in constant communication will mean your boss can find you no matter where in the world you are.
Graphic; Electronic boom
Adults on line, as a percentage of U.S. population:
1995: 7.6
1996: 15.3
1997: 21.8
1998: 25.8
1999: 30.5*
2000: 35.3*
2001: 40*
2002: 45*
Percentage of America's 100 million households connected to the Internet:
1996: 13
1997: 18
1998: 23
1999: 28*
2000: 33*
2001: 40*
Internet economy (includes retail sales to public and business-to- business dealings)
1996: $15.5 billion
1997: $38.8 billion
1998: $72 billion*
1999: $128 billion*
2000: $234 billion*
2001: $350 billion*
* projected
Compiled by Mark Mueller; Source: Progressive Policy Institute
© 1999, Boston Herald.
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