[AfrICANN-discuss] Mobile to Rule the Internet as Primary Device in 2020, Says Pew

[Anne-Rachel Inné]

http://www.wirelessandmobilenews.com/2008/12/mobile_to_rule_the_internet_as_primary_device_in_2020_says_pew.html

Mobile to Rule the Internet as Primary Device in 2020, Says Pew

By Reporter Wireless and Mobile News on December 14, 2008 6:04 PM

Watch out world, the mobile internet life is approaching soon.
According to a survey of experts by the Pew Internet & American Life
Project that asked expert respondents to assess predictions about
technology and its roles in the year 2020:

Some 77% said the mobile computing device (the smartphone) with more
significant computing power will be 2020's primary global
Internet-connection platform.
64% favored the idea that 2020 user interfaces will offer advanced
touch, talk and typing options and some added a fourth "T" - think.
Nearly four out of five respondents (78%) said the original Internet
architecture will not be completely replaced by a next-generation 'net
by 2020.
Three out of five respondents (60%) disagreed with the idea that
legislatures, courts, the technology industry, and media companies
will exercise effective intellectual property control by 2020.
A majority--56%--agreed that in 2020 "few lines (will) divide
professional from personal time, and that's OK."
More than half (55%) agreed that many lives will be touched in 2020 by
virtual worlds, mirror worlds, and augmented reality, while 45%
disagreed or did not answer the question.

The report entitled "Future of the Internet III" is built around
respondents' responses to scenarios stretching to the year 2020, and
hundreds of their written elaborations address such topics as: the
methods by which people will access information in the future; the
fact that technology is expanding the potential for hate, bigotry and
terrorism; the changes that will occur in human relationships due to
hyper-connected communication; the future of work and
employer-employee relationships; the evolution of the tools for and
use of augmented reality and virtual reality; the strength of
respondents' concerns that the global corporations and governments
currently in control of most resources might impede or even halt the
open development of the internet; and the challenges to come as issues
tied to security, privacy, digital identities, tracking and massive
databases collide.

"A strong undercurrent of anxiety runs through these experts' answers:
They are quite sure the internet and cell phones will continue to
advance at an amazing clip, but they are not at all sure people will
make the same kind of progress as they embrace better, faster, cheaper
gadgets," said Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American
Life Project. "The picture they paint of the future is that technology
will give people the power to be stronger actors in the political and
economic world, but that won't necessarily make it a kinder, gentler
world."

The Pew Internet/Elon University survey was conducted online by
invitation to experts identified in an extensive literature review and
to active members of several key technology groups, among them: The
Internet Society, The World Wide Web Consortium, the Multistakeholder
Group on Internet Governance, ICANN, Internet2 and the Association of
Internet Researchers.

Many respondents are at the pinnacle of internet leadership. Some
respondents are "working in the trenches" of building the Web; most of
the people in this latter category came to the survey by invitation to
those on the email list of the Pew Internet Project. The survey was an
"opt in," self-selecting effort. That process does not yield a random,
representative sample.

Full results of the survey, including engaging quotes from hundreds of
respondents and brief biographies on many of these people, can be
found on the web here.