Experts and analysts assess the future of the Internet in a new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project that asked respondents to assess predictions about technology and its roles in the year 2020.
Here is a summary of predictions:
• The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the Internet for most people in the world in 2020.
• The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance or forgiveness.
• Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the Internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.
• Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing "arms race," with the "crackers" who will find ways to copy and share content without paying for it.
• The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.
• Next-generation engineering of the network to improve the current Internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.
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