The Internet and its Impact on Society
As Taught by Prof. Tim Richardson
Outline136 D ©
Don't forget to regularly check the  GNED 136 Assignments Descriptions . Sometimes there are changes to dates due, and other "stuff you need to know".

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outline136a.htm
outline136b.htm
outline136c.htm
outline136d.htm
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changes last made 2004 April 6
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. After completing reading this unit, and listening to the lecture in class, student will have information about:

    o The evolution and adoption of mobile computing
    o The convergence of wireless devices and the Internet creating  a new channel to market
    o Some benefits of M-commerce
    o "convergence" driving wireless and m-commerce - three converging trends
    o Physical Limitations of mobile devices, which need to be addressed
    o Bandwidth and handset design limitations
    o What does wireless mean to the human experience?
    o Who are some of the early players in the wireless web access developments?
    o Internet's role in politics
    o What will the Internet of tomorrow look like?
    o Has the Web's popularity peaked?
    o IPv6 running out of IP addresses

WTGR

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"... we are on the threshold of a wireless revolution that will bring about the increasing
convergence of handheld devices and cellular phones, fundamentally altering the landscape"
Andy Walker's introduction to a Toronto Star story titled "Wireless Revolution Beckons", Walker is President of Cyberwalker Media
 www.cyberwalker.net/

  www.witiger.com/ecommerce/m-commercekillerap.htm
 
What does 
wireless mean 
to the human 
experience?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

What does 
wireless mean 
to the human 
experience?

. Humans try to develop technology and systems that strives to replicate, as much as possible, the true human experience, involving all senses, in communication.

We have many examples from history - humans developed the concept of the photograph to more accurately represent the human face because artists renditions were not perfect. Because humans see in colour, it was natural that humans would then develop colour photography. Since we do not see just static images, but rather moving images, it is natural that we would learn to create moving images. And since humans like to see and hear what they sense, it is logical that we would be able to add sound to moving pictures.

WTGR

http://www.profitguide.com/ "... wireless is really about instant information, a priceless commodity that will let you make decisions and transactions anytime, anywhere"
What is instant information? (WTGR)
  • instant ability to see/read real-time stock quotes as the prices are moved by the market
  • marketing and promotion information cast to you instantly based on your geographic location in an urban area (so you can buy something in close proximity)
  • instant ability to reply to a human (voice, text, or image based content)
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Special Assignment
This assignment due to hand in the Tuesday of the Second week of the last month of the term
This assignment is worth 6% of your final grade and is part of the final Test #3 

Test #3 = 
14% - multiple choice questions test in the final class 
6% - Special Assignment you do 

see Grading Details 
 www.witiger.com/centennialcollege/GNED136/grading136.htm

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Special Assignment Information
This is a Special Assignment which demonstrates using the internet for "remote learning and evaluation". You may do this work using the computers in the classroom, or do it at home. 
Using the material, information, and links on this page "outline136d.htm", answer the following questions. 

1. Using your own words, what are some of the ways the Internet is effecting the way politicians try to capture attention, and win elections 
2. In your own opinion, will the Internet be useful, or not useful 

  • to politicians
  • to political parties
3. Do you think the internet will continue to grow and expand, or, are there some limitations that will make it a limited part of our society and business?
  • Type the answers to these questions on paper.
  • Each question should take you about half a page.
  • Include your name (first name first, last name last)
  • Include your Section
  • Do not "share" answers. Similar answers among students will be considered copying.
  • Be careful of spelling and grammar.
  • You may do this work using the computers in the classroom, or do it at home
  • You must hand it in on time
  • you will hand it in to the School of Engineering Office on the 3rd floor
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Politics............... The Internet's role in politics 
  • influencing political parties platforms  
  • the Net as a tool to have greater imput from special interest groups  
  • the Net as a tool used by politicians. 
  • the Net as a way of letting everybody know about popular issues, and scandals
    • many online magazines have excellent articles about the Internet's role in politics
The Sept. 11, 1999 Internet publication of the full text of the Starr report and the White House rebuttal (before they were published elsewhere) solidified the Net's status  as an information source. Net users flooded the Web to read (and search) the unedited documents and later see the video. Though it was not the first time Net news outlets played a role in this political controversy — the Lewinsky story broke on the Drudge Report, and Salon Magazine was the first to reveal House  Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde's extramarital affair — it was the event that, for many, put the Internet on the map. 
    • article on CNN web site titled

    • Will the Internet change media's role in politics?
    • go here to read the full article

    •  http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9601/cyber_politics/
    • a key point of this article is
    • "the Internet offers a chance for candidates "to move beyond soundbites," ... the new medium is a route for candidates to "get their messages directly to the voter."

    •  
    • "The impact of the Internet on Society", in this context, is that political candidates do not have to be so carefully to please the newspapers and TV, they can get their message to you directly through the web site

    • WTGR
for a lot of info and gossip about top political stores, check

 http://www.drudgereport.com/
 
 

If you want to read something very interesting, but a bit long, there is a document titled Strategic Assessment: The Internet
 http://www.fas.org/cp/swett.html
It is written by
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (Policy Planning)
which, interestingly, is a department in the Pentagon
The document has a good introduction to "what is the Internet" 
 http://www.fas.org/cp/swett.html#What
and an interesting section on The Internet and U.S. politics

however, the date of this document is 1995 so it is not current - but it is interesting to see how the military considered (5 years ago) the potential of the Internet effecting politics

http://www.politicsonline.com/netpulsearchives/223netpulse.html#world
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Politics.................. The Internet's role in politics 
The past Ontario Provincial Election 
  • read  Cyberspace opens the political arena by Andrew Glass- this was discussed inclass  
  • check out  www.daltonmcguinty.com "Dalton Cam"  
  • a hijacked domain name www.mikeharris.com/ by the liberals  
  • or the opposite www.notuptothejob.com(no longer active)  
  • the conservatives www.OntarioPC.on.ca/  
  • the conservatives satire site  www.liberalsforharris.com/(no longer active)  
  • the NDPs  www.ontariondp.on.ca


The United States presidential election

"Estimates suggest that only 10 percent of the population has ever been on the Internet -- and had the chance to see politics newsgroups and freewheeling debate. Yet nine Republican candidates -- and the
main contender from the Democratic side -- have all mounted a presence on the World Wide Web with campaign home pages."
Brian Nelson for CNN
 http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9601/cyber_politics/
 
  www.georgewbush.com
 

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Future What will the Internet of tomorrow look like?
 
Read this article by Marjo Johne
Johne writes 
"When the Internet first came into our lives, it promised us virtually everything -- virtual schools, virtual offices, virtual shopping, virtual romance, even virtual religion. To a certain degree, the Net has kept its promise. We can now "attend" classes via e-mail and chat rooms, report for work in our pyjamas, buy groceries online, go on cyberdates and  say our prayers in cybermass."

"Bill St. Arnaud, senior director at Canarie Inc., a non-profit Internet development  organization based in Ottawa, points to file-sharing models such as Napster and Gnutella as examples of where the Internet is headed. These decentralized "peer-to-peer" frameworks, which allow Internet users to share content with each other without a main controlling gateway, will become more common in the future. "It's getting away from  control and authority," he says. "New ways of delivering content will be established, and  we will be doing things like downloading movies for free, allowing non-traditional moviemakers to get a worldwide audience, but the bottom line for users is that there will  be a greater richness and availability of information and content, from music to videos and so forth."

High-speed broadband connections, which can transmit higher concentrations of data at a faster clip, will further encourage this proliferation of media-rich content. Consequently, says Markus Hoffman at Lucent Technologies, the Internet will become less text-heavy and more audiovisual.

Anthony Anirud, a senior telecommunications analyst with IDC Canada, envisions the Internet of tomorrow as a truly visual and interactive medium that goes beyond just leaving video messages on someone's e-mail. At present, video conferencing over the Internet is a slow and awkward business, with slow-moving images and delays in  transmission of both audio and visual data.

The convergence of voice and data networks will radically change how we use the Internet, says Mr. Anirud. "Once this takes off, we could be visually corresponding back  and forth in real time. In fact, any kind of visual content on the Internet will become interactive."

While it all sounds exciting, there is a downside: As peer-to-networking and high-speed broadband connections make information even more easily accessible than it is today, content on the Internet will inevitably become downgraded, in both actual and perceived quality, says Mr. St. Arnaud."
 

 

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Future

Weak?

Has the Web's popularity peaked?
 
article. Read this article by Robert Wright
Feb. 22, 2001
"Since it started to appear on the mainstream's radar range in about 1994, the Net has produced prodigious growth rates. From about 20 million users in 1995, to between 350 and 400 million today, nobody could deny it has been a phenomenal success --  dot-com bust or not."

"But a couple of recent studies point to the possibility that Internet growth is slowing down, perhaps even levelling off."

"The first hint was when December [2000] figures showed that, for the first time, the number of hours people spent online had fallen -- from 19.2 to 17.6 hours per month. But researchers concluded that it had more to do with families spending more time together during the holidays than with any real slow-down. But the trend has continued. According to PC Data Online figures, 36 of the 50 most popular Web properties actually experienced a decline in traffic in January. Among the Top 10 sites, for instance, Yahoo.com's traffic fell 2.3 per cent and AOL.com's fell a mere 0.5 per cent, but others experienced greater declines, including Passport.com (4 per cent), Geocities.com (3.8 per cent), eBay.com (2.8 per cent), Lycos.com (6.2 per cent) and Amazon.com (19.6 per cent). Traffic at some sites in the Top 100 fell by as much as 62.2 per   cent. PC Data Online didn't provide aggregate figures for Net traffic."

"last week,[Feb 15, 2001]  research firm Ipsos-Reid released a study that concluded Internet growth is slowing down and even stalling in parts of the world. The study, The Face Of The Web, shows that Internet usage is highly concentrated in a few countries -- particularly in North America, Europe and a few pockets elsewhere -- but is slowing in most others. In fact, it found that up to a third of the world not only has no intention of going online, it has never even heard of the Internet. The study says there are about 350 million regular Internet users, about 6 per cent of the world's population. That's up 16 per cent over 1999, but well below previous annual growth rates. If the trend continues, the Net's population won't come close to the 1 billion total predicted by a number of industry analysts."
 

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This article by Wright draws conclusions that Web popularity has decreased slightly by making deductions about the decrease in traffic on some of the large sites. 

Maybe popularity has not dropped at all, it might be simply that people now know the Web a little better and don't go to the high traffic sites because they have found more interesting topic specific sites?

 
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Future

Weak?

. the article by Robert Wright is based on a study done by market research firm Ipsos Reid, sooo, we'll go direct to the Ipsos Reid website to see the information directly
"Has the World Wide Web hit its high-water mark? 
 New research seems to indicate Internet economy heading into a “seventh inning stretch”
 www.angusreid.com/media/content/displaypr.cfm?id_to_view=1154

"Internet growth is slowing and even stalling in parts of  the world, according to Ipsos-Reid, a leading international research firm. The company's study, The  Face of the Web, shows that usage is highly concentrated in a few countries, exhibits signs of slowing  growth in several others, and that up to a third of the world has neither heard of the Internet nor has any intention of going online anytime soon.  The Face of the Web's projections peg the worldwide Internet population at about 350 million regular users, up about 16% year-over-over, which is a decent showing but far below growth levels in  previous years"

Slower Growth Doesn't Mean Demise 

"Some of the company’s [Ipsos Reid] ongoing global Internet research shows that:
 

  • Online talk is cheap: Nine-in-ten young Internet users have used e-mail, and seven-in-ten  participate in chat rooms regularly. 
  • Music downloading: 36% of all adult Internet users and 41% of teens and young adult Internet  users have downloaded music from the Web in MP3 or similar formats. 
  • Research tool: More than nine-in-ten teenagers in U.S. and Canada use the web to help with homework. 
  • E-commerce: Nearly 120 million Internet users worldwide have already made a purchase or transaction online, with as many as one in four purchases made on impulse. 
  • Banking and investing: Internet users in Europe are among the world's most enthusiastic online banking customers, ahead of those in the United States. "
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Future

Weak?

Is the Web shrinking? 
By Julie Clow  Feb 2002
A newspaper article suggesting that the Internet is declining because domain names are declining ! is this a valid conclusion?
"The Web Server Survey, completed by Bath, England-based Netcraft, looked at Web server software usage on Internet connected computers, and shows that around 130,000 owners dropped their domains over the last three months.  Toronto-based Internet author Rick Broadhead said there are a number of reasons we  are seeing this first shift in Internet growth now.  "Many of these names were created during the dot-com boom years and a lot of those sites have disappeared," he said. "Secondly, there were a lot of people registering names  in that period, because people hoped that someone would come knocking on their door and offer them a large sum of money to turn over the domain name. A lot of people also  had business ideas that they were developing and they wanted to get the name for when the business went forward. Now, a lot of those ideas are not being pursued." And a lot of those domain names were bought and never used. The Canadian Internet  Registration Authority (CIRA) will have released about 20,000 expired .ca Internet domain  names in mid-January and, following that, will continue to release expired names daily.   CIRA spokesperson Gabriel Ahad said that while the numbers are shrinking, the kind of drop that the Netcraft survey shows is a small percentage decrease.  "What this really means … is that the Internet as a means of communications for people and business is maturing," he said. "We are seeing owners of .ca Web sites becoming more educated in Web site management practices. In the past, an organization may have  registered 10 names when, over time, they realize they only need one or two. Also, the initial frenzy has turned into a sober second thought and that’s a good thing, because as  we become more experienced about use of the Internet, we will see a better use of the Internet."  The survey concludes that the primary reason for the drop is a decrease in the number of  registered domain names, as the number of domains not renewed exceeds new  registrations. "Domains bought during the rampant domain-name speculation of late 1999 are now coming up for two-year renewal, and many are being abandoned," reads  the survey which was released in December and was made up of responses from 36,276,252 sites.
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Future

Outside
of
urban
areas

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One of the concerns any country would have about the adoption of a new technology is the problems that can develop between the urban and rural populations. Most countries on the planet have cities of some relatively large size, and most countries, except for Singapore, Hong Kong etc., have rural populations since an agri-industry producing food is still necessary for humans!
What the world has witnessed in the 1970's, 80's and 90'd is many more countries having an erosion of the rural populations and cities getting even bigger and over crowded.
When this happens, sometimes there ends up being conflict betweeb tge urban and rural populations since government policy (which is often made for the advantage of the urban mass) can be negative for the rural population.

Additionally, technological developments in the 1980's and 1990's (particularly technologies of communication fax, cell phones, cable TV) have benefited urban populations without any benefit being passed on to the rural areas.
Therefore we have picked an article below which deals with this isses.

The Internet is great, and has many advantages for individuals, but in order to get access you need to live in an urban area in order to have telephone land line, or TV cable acccess in order to connect to an ISP.

At present (July 2001) access to the Internet through satellite and other links is still relatively uncomon and very expensive.

.article "Internet for all"

this story appeared on the Star's website

"the federal Liberals promised to "make high-speed  broadband Internet access available to residents and businesses in all communities in Canada by 2004...A blue-ribbon task force recently calculated that it could cost as much as $4 billion to deliver high-speed Internet access to homes and businesses in every community in Canada... In specific terms, it said that "First Nation, Inuit, rural and remote communities should be a priority along with public institutions," such as  libraries, health-care centres, schools and public access points... But the truth is that from a private sector perspective, delivering high-speed Internet access to thinly populated, far-flung communities doesn't make  financial sense. Remote communities and sparse populations offer investors no economies of scale to offset the huge investments in infrastructure that a national network would require.  As a result, government would have to underwrite a large share of the costs. But not to do so would be tantamount to allowing a massive technological divide between Canadians living in cities and those who populate the rest of the country."
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When Prof. Richardson taught this course in 1999, one of the biggest topics was Y2K. Since that time in 2000 and early 2001, the general public seems to think we have passed any major crisis and it will be growth as usual - actually, that is not entirely true, there are still some more major problems to be solved, which, could threaten the future existence of the Internet and the World Wide Web.
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Internet
needs
space 
to grow
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Internet 
needs 
space 
to grow
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Internet 
needs 
space 
to grow

article. the well researched article by Tyler Hamilton in the Toronto Star
"Ubiquitous Internet needs space to grow"
 
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What Tyler is talking about can be analogized like this: imagine the invention of the telephone taking off very very fast, and you begin with 6 digit numbers and no area codes, but realize after a couple of years you will run out of 6 digit telephone number, and, if you switch to 7 digit numbers, to accomodate more growth, the older telephones working on 6 digits won't operate in the new 7 digit system.
WTGR
Mr. Hamilton writes a long article about the consequences of running out of IP addresses as more and more devices and facilities are connected to the internet. He begins the article by explaining the wide range of appliances and technologies that could be connected tot he Net, which would require IP addresses in order to be "contacted" and given commands.
 
"It's 2020 and, like electricity and running water, the Internet has come to power, and flows through every aspect of your life. Your personal computer and mobile phone aren't the only devices connected to the World Wide Web. Your microwave now surfs for recipes based on the ingredients in your cupboards. Your grocery orders are automatically placed online as food and drinks are taken from your fridge. Your dishwasher, before turning itself on, negotiates the cheapest energy rate for the day, thanks to a software agent known as a hydrobroker. Minivans. Air conditioners. Picture frames. Digital books. MP3 players. Palm computers. BlackBerry pagers. Smart cards. Pop machines. Motor boats.... They will all have a 24-hour, always-on connection to the Internet one day and, like the devices I mentioned above, they will all require Internet Protocol or IP addresses to identify them as unique online ``beings.''  Many experts suggest that the average person will need more than 100 IP addresses for his or her own use within the next 20 years. Herein lies the problem. The Internet, as it exists today, can't support 600 billion IP addresses. If we're lucky, it's capable of assigning 4.3 billion addresses. And if that's the case, we've already used up more than 60 per cent of the capacity, meaning we'll likely run out within the next few years. Can anybody say crisis? If you thought the Y2K bug threat was a major headache, then get ready for a migraine."

"Every device that links to the Internet needs its own IP address so that other online devices can find and communicate with it.  Today, when a device such as a laptop dials up to the Internet, it is assigned a temporary IP address for that specific online session. But in the not-so-distant future of always-on, ubiquitous Net access, most IP addresses will be permanently assigned -  kind of like a telephone number.

  ``If we don't do anything, then we have a similar problem to Y2K,'' says Latif Ladid, president of the IPv6 Forum, a global consortium of more than a 100 telecommunications carriers, Internet service providers and network equipment makers"

"The current generation, known as Internet protocol version 4, or IPv4, has been in place since 1983. It was co-created by Dr.  Vint Cerf, known affectionately as ``father of the Internet.'' Before IPv4, we had APARnet, a network of about 300 mainframe computers that was built by the U.S. government and operated between 1969 and 1983. Ladid says it's time to move forward with Internet Protocol version 6, or IPv6, in development since the early 1990s and was approved as a global standard in 1999. Soon after, Ladid founded the IPv6 Forum. The group was in Ottawa last week [2001 May] as part of a worldwide awareness tour.  As far as Ladid is concerned, if we start embracing IPv6 now, we are more likely to avoid the last-minute crunch we  experienced with Y2K."

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Internet 
needs 
space
to grow
Latif Ladid, president of the IPv6 Forum, has a powerpoint presentation on the IPv6 website which you are encouraged to have a look at the first few slides.
http://www.ipv6forum.com/navbar/globalsummit/slides/html/latif.ladid/sld001.htm
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Internet 
needs 
space 
to grow
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Internet 
needs 
space 
to grow

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Tyler Hamilton [in May 2001] is one of the first journalists in Canada to address this problem but it is possible to find reference to this "challenge" in some articles going back to 1999.
WTGR
. the 1999 article by Joe McGarvey of ZD Net Inter@ctive Week raises the question of IP addresses limitations and challenges faced by the IPv6 Forum
 http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2349342,00.html

McGarvey explains,

"The major shortcoming of the current version of IP, IPv4, is that it is running out of available IP addresses.  Designed when the Internet was still a data-sharing  network for research facilities and the military, IPv4 was given a 32-bit addressing scheme, which was capable of assigning a few billion unique addresses. IPv6, on the other hand, is beefed up with a 128-bit addressing scheme, which enables it to spawn many more billions of additional addresses."

McGarvey notes the first meeting of the IPv6 Forum, an international advocacy group dedicated to advancing the next generation of the Internet Protocol (IP), was held in Paris in October 1999.
 

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