Traced in the phosphors glowing on the screen of his computer, Robert E. Kahn sees the 21st century: Hair-thin strands of glass fiber are threaded through computerized libraries to supercomputers, large high-resolution video screens and hundreds of thousands of computer work stations located throughout the country … Such a national network – an information infrastructure … much like a national highway system for data – would make it possible to ship enormous amounts of information back and forth at what are called gigabit speeds (billions of bits of data per second), almost a thousand times faster than anyone using today’s fastest electronic networks.
Predictor: Kahn, Robert E.
Prediction, in context:In a 1990 article in The New York Times, John Markoff paraphrases the future vision of Internet pioneer Robert Kahn. Markoff writes: ”Traced in the phosphors glowing on the screen of his computer, Robert E. Kahn sees the 21st century: Hair-thin strands of glass fiber are threaded through computerized libraries to supercomputers, large high-resolution video screens and hundreds of thousands of computer work stations located throughout the country … Such a national network – an information infrastructure, Dr. Kahn calls it, much like a national highway system for data – would make it possible to ship enormous amounts of information back and forth at what are called gigabit speeds (billions of bits of data per second), almost a thousand times faster than anyone using today’s fastest electronic networks. Its planners say that once the network is completed, scientists, scholars, students, economists and business executives will have instant access to computerized libraries the size of the Library of Congress. The potential for hundreds of new businesses will be created and old ones will be energized by the emergence of a vast coast-to-coast electronic marketplace. Doctors will have the assistance of artificially brilliant computer systems in treating patients; so will pharmaceutical companies, in designing drugs. Extremely clear sound will be transmitted cross-continent along with high-resolution television pictures on screens the size of an office or living-room wall. Business and personal travel – and the nation’s voracious appetite for oil – may well begin to decline as such video becomes widely available for sales conferences, for example, or other kinds of interaction … ‘We don’t want to decide what the infrastructure will be,’ said Dr. Kahn. ‘We want to be in the position of building experiments. The industry will learn enough lessons so that they will be able to do it right.'”
Biography:Robert E. (Bob) Kahn was hired by Lawrence Roberts at IPTO in 1972 to work on networking technologies. He organized a demonstration of ARPAnet between 40 machines and a Terminal Interface Processor at International Conference on Computer Communications that year, sharing the idea of the network for the first time with a group of observers from around the world. In 1973, he posed the Internet problem and began a research program at ARPA to look into it, setting four goals for design: 1) any network should be able to connect with any other; 2) there will be no central distribution or control; error recovery Ð lost packets will be retransmitted; 4) no internal changes will have to be made to a computer to connect it to the network. In 1973 he presented his basic Internet ideas with Vinton Cerf at the International Network Working Group gathering. In 1974 he published (with Cerf) a paper on Packet Network interconnection that detailed the design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP). (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: September 1, 1990
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: New York Times
Title, headline, chapter name: Creating a Giant Computer Highway
Quote Type: Partial quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=ecf3ae82a22329522f97a4280e07dc1b&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVzb-lSlAl&_md5=bf21d55d107186a4033329aed3f2df72
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Garrison, Betty