Enternet : Revolutionising Our Lives

In this vision of the not-so-distant future the thing that unites all these different activities is the Internet -- and these are only the beginning of the ways the global computer network will change our lives. As technologists reflect on the great inventions of the millennium and turn once again to predictions for a Star Trek future, the Net will undoubtedly figure as one of the biggest leaps forward of the last century. Dot com and .co.uk addresses adorn advertisement hoardings across the country, and the Internet and its effects are discussed by heads of state. Both US president Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair are keen to be seen as techno-friendly, and use the Internet to promote both themselves and their countries. Communication has come a long way since cavemen painted their dinner on the wall -- and nothing has evolved faster than the Internet. In just thirty years the Internet has grown from a broken memo between two professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology into the biggest medium for global communication the world has ever seen. First there was radio, then TV and as we fade out of the second millennium the Internet looks to be a third communications revolution. Experts argue that the Internet is not merely evolving but revolutionising our lives. And that revolution is only just beginning, according Paul Saffo, a leading futurist and director of California's Institute for the Future. Saffo says we are all revolutionaries on the Net, voting with our mouses. What we see of the Internet now is not the future, he believes. "Will we recognise the Net in five years? Absolutely not," he said in a recent interview. And the revolution will not be led from PCs, he predicts. "We will look back 30 years from now and we're going to say the personal computer was very interesting, but it was the horseless carriage of this whole thing. The real revolution's going to be working in devices that people hardly notice." Online communities are...