The prediction, in brief:

In two years, today’s WWW browsers will be as outdated as a lime-green polyester leisure suit. By the time this article is published, there should be a new crop of browsers that integrate the WWW, e-mail, netnews, remote login, and other network services. These browsers will accept powerful scripting languages from servers. This will enable browsers and users to interact in a variety of ways. Browsers will also interact with one another and with network services. Actually, the possibilities are limitless.

Predictor: Auerbach, Karl

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 article for LAN magazine, Karl Auerbach and Chris Wellens cover the future of the Internet. They write:”In two years, today’s WWW browsers will be as outdated as a lime-green polyester leisure suit. By the time this article is published, there should be a new crop of browsers that integrate the WWW, e-mail, netnews, remote login, and other network services. These browsers will accept powerful scripting languages from servers. This will enable browsers and users to interact in a variety of ways. Browsers will also interact with one another and with network services. Actually, the possibilities are limitless. The Web should also see a massive increase in the capability of WWW servers, and search engines should improve. Perhaps we will see the development of useful ‘knowbots’ – the offspring of today’s prototype robots, which merely build indices. These future knowbots could aggregate information, build summaries, and otherwise aggregate data and reduce it to information.”

Date of prediction: October 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure

Subtopic: Language/Interface/Software

Name of publication: LAN Magazine

Title, headline, chapter name: Internet Evolution or Revolution?

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web1.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/121/612/36098279w1/purl=rc1_ITOF_0_A17433050&dyn=11!xrn_138_0_A17433050?sw_aep=ncliveec

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Garrison, Betty