The entire country should be connected by electronic mail, much as we are connected today by telephone. Businesses could exchange documents electronically, and information could be disseminated quickly.
Predictor: Simons, Barbara
Prediction, in context:In a 1991 article for Communciations of the ACM, Barbara Simons, secretary for the Association for Computing Machinery and a computer science researcher for IBM, writes: ”The entire country should be connected by electronic mail, much as we are connected today by telephone. Businesses could exchange documents electronically, and information could be disseminated quickly. For example, details of important legal decisions could be known by lawyers throughout the country almost instantaneously. Working at home would be facilitated for people caring for the elderly and for those with physical limitations. The need for transportation would be decreased, thereby reducing energy usage. The development of a national network would require extensive R&D (research & development) in areas such as fault-tolerant distributed computing, protocols, cryptography, security, and human factors.”
Biography:Barbara Simons was a 1990s leader in technology-policy issues. She founded and chaired the Association for Computing Machinery’s U.S. Technology Policy Committee (USACM) and was ACM secretary from 1990 to 1992, prior to which she chaired the ACM Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: October 1, 1991
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: E-mail
Name of publication: Communications of the ACM - Association for Computing Machinery
Title, headline, chapter name: Communication and Information
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 125
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Stewart, Ben L.