Researchers are investigating two main techniques for speeding up the Web: “caching” and optimized protocols. Based on the tests and simulations done so far, both methods will dramatically improve Web response times … but the ideal caching scheme would also store the pages you are most likely to visit, not just the ones you have already seen.
Predictor: Steinberg, Steve G.
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Steve Steinberg covers the work programmers are doing to find ways to speed up the transfer of bit packets on the Internet. Steinberg writes: ”Researchers are investigating two main techniques for speeding up the Web: ‘caching’ and optimized protocols. Based on the tests and simulations done so far, both methods will dramatically improve Web response times. It’s a telling example of the kind of systemic inefficiencies that are routinely hidden by fast hardware. The easiest way to improve Web performance is to not use the network at all. That’s the idea behind caching, or storing copies of frequently accessed data somewhere close by. For example, browsers such as Mosaic and Netscape remember the last few websites you’ve accessed. This way, if you go back to a page, the data can be read straight from memory instead of from a computer across the country. This helps, but the ideal caching scheme would also store the pages you are most likely to visit, not just the ones you have already seen. That’s why researchers are building caching schemes that operate further downstream – at special geographically distributed caching points or at Internet service-provider nodes.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Protocols
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Geek Page: Speeding Up the Web
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.12/geek.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney