Mailund on the Internet

Just in follow up to my previous post, where I wrote a bit about my amazement of how the Internet has connected the world, here's a TED talk on that exact topic:

The first part is a bit dull, I think, but halfway through Hector Ruiz gets to the 50x15 project -- connecting half the world to the Net in 2015.

Yesterday was Pangea Day. Imagine a world-wide film festival?

I continue to be baffled about how information technology has changed the world.

When I started studying computer science, in 1995 (which is centuries ago in Internet years), the web was in the process of replacing Gopher and the Internet was not really something ordinary people knew about or used. Not in Denmark, at least. That changed fast.

Two-three years later, everyone had an Internet connection at home, and a little bit later, when Google showed up on the scene replacing AltaVista, Yahoo etc., the Internet replaced the encyclopaedia as the place you would find information (they may not like me saying this, but Google really did blow the competitors out of the water). I cannot really imagine living without the Internet and search engines any more. When I am not connected, I feel almost handicapped. In my work, I need to look up stuff all the time, and going through books and manuals is so much harder than just googling.

Anyway, that was a "local" change to life, and I didn't really notice how the world got smaller through the same technology until a few years later. I was working on a project together with a guy in Australia, and one day it struck me how amazing it was that I could send an email in the evening about my progress so far, and while I slept he would work on the project and in the morning I would have his update. A letter would take days, but we were working almost interactively together on opposite sides of the world!

A little later, I was myself working in Australia, first at the University of Adelaide, a bit later at the University of South Australia -- both times for shorter stays of a few months duration -- and using instant messaging I could work interactively with people at home, and talk to friends. With my cellphone, I could talk to my friends while I was walking through a park in Adelaide and they were getting ready for bed in Denmark. It was a bit expensive, but it was possible.

Today, I frequently communicate over the 'net with people from the North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Very rarely South America, although I used to when I was working in a different field, and never really Africa for some reason, although I do get the occasional email from South Africa. If I want to, I can call people up all over the world, and as the price goes down (or Internet telephony takes over) I will be able to talk to people everywhere, from anywhere, over my cellphone.

Hell, I'm posting this sitting in my garden, connected over a wireless connection. I wouldn't have believed this possible ten years ago.

There's some drawbacks to this as well, of course, such as Jotun Hein never really understanding time zones and calling in the middle of the night from New Zealand to discuss a project... It happened a couple of times while Jotun was on sabbatical there. Mike Steel told me at a bbq that he had the same problem when Jotun calls him from the UK. But all in all, it is a great thing, in my opinion.

Information technology has made the world into a global village. It is said a lot, but in some sense it is true, and if you stop and think about it, it really is amazing.

Well, not the entire world has joined the village. The majority of people are not connected. I don't know the numbers, but I wouldn't think a billion people are connected (and we have just passed 6,666,666 billion people worldwide).