Prophecies of the Internet, 1971 - Boing Boing
It is true these are amazing predictions, but still so rooted in the print and TV technologies of the day. They reveal just how fundamental the change has been.
as we looked through our library of Baran's brilliant, and still-relevant, research papers, we came across a mind-blowing report from 1971, titled "Toward a Study of Future Urban High-Capacity Telecommunications Systems." At the time, Baran and his IFTF colleagues were considering how the military's ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, might someday change our everyday lives if it became publicly accessible. This particular report contained a delightfully prophetic page of forecasts titled "Brief Descriptions of Potential Home Information Services."
It is true these are amazing predictions, but still so rooted in the print and TV technologies of the day. They reveal just how fundamental the change has been.
