The video above is an example of how far the Internet has come since its inception back
in the 1960s when it was developed as a way to protect national security in the
case of a nuclear attack. As the
Internet evolved, it was utilized by academia, and the scientific
community. Each of these institutions
contributed to further technological advancements. The military developed TCP/IP as a standard
protocol for packet switching, while the academia offered Leonard Kleinrock,
the scholar that developed packet switching, and finally the scientific
community developed new networks by connecting server regional supercomputer
centers.
However it
took a new language and protocol for the Internet to become the
WorldWideWeb. HTML and HTTP, made the
Internet user friendly. Tim
Berners-Lee's vision was to make the Internet less laborious for users by using
hyperlinks to connect not only text, but graphics, video, and audio on
demand. With the development of a
user-friendly GUI, commercial browsers, such as NetScape's Navigator and the
Microsoft's Explorer, came on the scene.
Today
there are over two billion users worldwide that connect to the Web in a variety
of ways and for different reasons. For
many it is a means to communicate by e-mail, chat, social networks and video
phone. While many engage in e-commerce
through retail websites, auctions, banking, and investing. While others use the Web to inform,
learn/teach, and share knowledge through blogs, news sites, and distance
learning institutions. And most recently
it has become a major source of entertainment as technologies converge.
It is
apparent that the Internet is so ingrained our daily lives that smartphones
sales have increased in the past five years.
Smartphones are cellphones that are also pocket size computers that can
access the Web anywhere by using broadband networks. This is evidence that many modern folks today
cannot stay away from the Web for too long.
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