Incredible as it may seem, 2018 sees the 35^th birthday of the internet – that’s if you take January 1^st 1983 the date when the first use of TCP/IP was introduced. That’s when, for the first time, computers could communicate with each other, regardless of national or linguistic barriers. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that the world wide web we know today was first developed by the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Switzerland. This is when the internet began to show its real-life applications outside of the military and academic fields.

But, there was no grand unveiling of the internet to the public back then, and for a long time the number of people using the internet was relatively small. In 1990 there were only 3 million users worldwide, with 73% of them in the US and 15% in Europe. Fast forward 30 years and over 4 billion people will be online in 2021, according to networking business Cisco (News - Alert).

The early days

The internet has come on leaps and bounds over the past three decades. The early days, when you had to use a dial-up modem that you could physically hear whirring as it connected to cyberspace, now seem like a distant memory. Today, we expect superfast broadband and wireless connectivity anywhere in the world.

Naturally, as the technology we use to connect with the internet has advanced, so have the applications available to us online. Technology has undoubtedly made our lives a lot easier, so much so, we can even communicate with computers and there are apps that help with even the smallest of jobs. And, if there has been an over-riding trend, it has been to make using the internet increasingly easier for everyone to use. For example, in the earliest days of Google (News - Alert), the company’s key philosophy was to be distinctly different from all the other search engines of the time by having a clean, uncluttered screen backed by quick and accurate searches. With this single-minded and user-centric approach,it’s not surprising that it has reached its untouchable status today, while services like Ask Jeeves are now reduced to being a fan page on Facebook (News - Alert).

The race is on

Just like in the post-war arms race between the US and Russia – when the two countries competed to stockpile the most nuclear missiles – today’s tech giants are going head-to-head in the battle to stay ahead of the curve in the tech industry. Accordingly, our user expectations grow, pushing manufacturers to accelerate the pace of innovation and flood the market with quicker, better and smarter products.

Naturally, the real winners are the users, as we benefit from the tech that’s being produced, as well as its applications.And however far we’ve travelled already, there are many more developments justaround the corner.With the likes of driverless cars on the horizon, there are still many advancements to come that will make our lives easier.

All about the Internet of Things

As has been much publicised, the Internet of Things is set to transform the way we live in the future. Thanks to its interconnectivity devices and services, daily routines such as getting to work and buying groceries will be easier than ever before. However, this is not without its risks. Maybe relying even more than we do currently on technology could be seen as increasing our level of vulnerability, both in terms of what to do when technology fails as well as leaving ourselves open to the ever-growing risk of cyber-attack. Therefore, the onus is very much on the technology creators to include extra levels of reliability and security to minimise the risks of this happening.

The rise of Big Data

This ever more widespread connectedness has also led to the rise of that other great buzz phrase Big Data and this too will undoubtedly have a greater and greater effect on how we are able to take advantage of the internet, and how we can enjoy an even more tailored service from the websites that we visit.

For example, take the sorts of sites that we visit for pleasure –such as online gaming sites. If you’re playing online slots, every game you select, bonus feature you click on, and amount of time you spend playing, will generate data that informs the website about your playing preferences. The website operator will then use this information to learn about what their users enjoy, and how they behave, when they’re gambling – and this will inform their future product development.

With increasingly refined analytical tools, websites everywhere now have more power than ever to tailor and personalise services to their customers.

VR for real

Another great example of how technology is helping to further enhance our online experience comes in the form of virtual reality. It’s only in the last couple of years that this has started to enter the mainstream but the combination of affordable hardware and a commitment by software developers to provide compelling content has meant that the online experience is also steadily being turned into an even more immersive one than ever before.

Along with VR, it’s Artificial Intelligence that many other observers regard to be the next major area of development in the sphere of internet technology, with machines gradually being able to take on more and more tasks on our behalf driven, in part, by the data that is gradually being amassed online. Naturally, some have concerns about the wisdom of relying too heavily on AI but there is every reason that it can only enhance the online experience too.

So, these are certainly exciting times in the field of internet technology and seem a thousand years on from the first arrival of the internet instead of just 35. And with the increasing user-centric nature of the developments it’s technology that, for once, is totally focused on benefiting the people who will use it rather than merely being an academic or practical exercise.