Welcome to the Emerald City! Please Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain

How different would the public interpretation of computer/communication networks be if the guiding metaphor were that of the “information sidewalk”?

From the Ether: Predicting the Internet’s Catastrophic Collapse and Ghost Sites Galore in 1996

Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet’s continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet, which only just recently got this section here in InfoWorld, will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.

Digital Democracy

Mandate online access to government information; allow the private sectors to add value and resell it. Make all federal agencies accessible to the public via e-mail. Foster programs to support telecommuting and shared scientific databases. Encourage the deployment of Integrated Services Digital Network-based services. Avoid the creation of gaps between the information-rich and -poor. Do not subsidize network service providers; subsidize users where appropriate. Find a way to make advertising permissible and useful in the National Information Infrastructure.

Transforming The Decade: 10 Critical Technologies; Fiber Optics New Networks For the Nation

[The Internet] will unleash a tremendous amount of creativity and innovation which will lead to capabilities we can’t even imagine today.

MCI Sponsorship of Eastern European Environmental Librarians Opens Door to Global Internet Info Exchange

As the explosive growth of the Internet continues, it is critical that we introduce the unique capabilities of this global network to those parts of the world who need a “jump start” to get on the superhighway.

Inside the Silicon Valley Money Machine

Someday you’re going to back a 20-year-old kid who writes some software that will change the world.

Lessons From The Luddites

[Whereever] neo-Luddites may be found, they are attempting to bear witness to the secret little truth that lies at the heart of modern experience: Whatever its presumed benefits, of speed, or ease, or power, or wealth, industrial technology comes at a price, and in the contemporary world that price is ever rising and ever threatening.

Big Brother, Good-Bye

The plugs and jacks and sockets have taken over the telescreen world; the Ministry is dead. Every untilled plug, every unconnected jack, is a loose end, a new entry into the network or an exit from it, a new soap box in Hyde Park, a new podium, a new microphone for poetry or prose, a new screen or telescreen for displaying private sentiment or fomenting sedition, for preaching the gospel, or peddling fresh bread.

Minutes for IAB Teleconference

Turn the Internet into the main communications infrastructure for the next century. What is the main consequence to the architecture?

Executive Summary

The federal government will never be able to invest in infrastructure facilities and services a meaningful fraction of the multibillion-dollar private-sector investment plus the growing investments by state governments in state-based information infrastructure and by all manner of individuals and organizations in local computing, communications, and information access infrastructure. What the federal government can do is focus its own investments and policymaking to gain the maximum leverage and assure the necessary balancing of interests to make sure that the public interest is met.