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Internet Services

And How They Grew

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Involuntary Immigrant from Another Time

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What Comes Next?

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What will internet apps and services look like in another 30 years?

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My best, technical answer:

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What Comes Next?

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What will internet apps and services look like in another 30 years?

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My best, technical answer:

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I Do Not Know

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Everything Old is New Again

  • 1967: Terminals connected to multi-user computers.
  • 1995: Sun Microsystems and "The Network Is the Computer"
  • Workstations as thin clients
  • Remote procedure calls (RPCs)
  • Client-Server architectures
  • Today: Chromebooks connected to the cloud.
    • 2006: EC2 and S3
    • 2011: First chromebooks for sale
    • 2020: More Chromebooks sold than Macs
    • AWS is Amazon's biggest revenue stream

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

– George Santayana, The Life of Reason: Phases of Human Progress

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Internet Erases Boundaries

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What Else Has the Internet Erased?

Show of hands: How many of you

  • Buy newspapers for news or weather?
  • Keep maps in your car?
  • Shop every day? Go to the bank?
  • Listen to audiobooks on CDs or tapes from the library? Go to university lectures?
  • Own a multi-volume encyclopedia? An unabridged dictionary? A thesaurus?
  • Have big photo albums at home? A DVD player for movies?
  • Own a printer to print out the documents you create on your desktop computer?
  • Use a phonebook? Have a landline?

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And Some Privacy and Security

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Bringing You a Factotum

On Saturday morning, September 30, I got my influenza vaccination.

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Google: "You have a flu shot in 17 minutes."

Me: (oops!) "Driving directions to Northern Colorado VA Clinic"

Google: "Here are the directions. The VA Clinic is closed."

[driving]

Google: "You have a text message from Ron Friedland. Would you like me to read it?"

Me: "Yes" and then "Message to Ron Friedland"

… [later] …

Me: "Open coffee shops near me." and "Driving directions to Earl's Coffee"

… [still later] …

Me: "Driving directions home." and "Call my sister, Jo"

Google: "Is that Jo Haemer, mobile?"

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It Requires Infrastructure: ISPs