The infrastructure should be flexible in the way it transports these ones and zeroes: Besides routing them to their destinations, it should be able to carry them with varying degrees of speed, accuracy, and security to match different computer capabilities and needs… We … need to endow the NII with a set of widely understood common communication conventions … The information infrastructure, then, is characterized by three key ingredients: flexible transport capabilities, common communication conventions and common servers.
Predictor: Dertouzos, Michael
Prediction, in context:In a 1991 article for Technology Review, MIT researcher/administrator Michael Dertouzos writes: ”Once information is computerized, it becomes a deceptively simple, uniform sequence of ones and zeros. The infrastructure should be flexible in the way it transports these ones and zeroes: Besides routing them to their destinations, it should be able to carry them with varying degrees of speed, accuracy, and security to match different computer capabilities and needs… We … need to endow the NII [National Information Infrastructure] with a set of widely understood common communication conventions. Moreover, these conventions should be based on concepts that make life easier for us humans, rather than for our computer servants. Finally, the truly useful infrastructure should be equipped with common ‘servers’ – computers that provide a few basic information services of wide interest like computerized white and yellow pages. The information infrastructure, then, is characterized by three key ingredients: flexible transport capabilities, common communication conventions and common servers. Surrounding this basic infrastructure are the millions of computers that would use it to buy and sell information services.”
Biography:Michael Dertouzos was director of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and the author of “The Unfinished Revolution.” He led a project intended to make computers adapt to people. He outlined a comprehensive proposal for a national information “infrastructure” in a 1991 article for Technology Review. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1991
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Technology Review
Title, headline, chapter name: Building the Information Marketplace
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web2.infortrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/599/939/33335311w2/purl=rcl
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney