Computers in Physics

Computers in Physics The Internet Moves Out of its Corner Glenn Ricart Citation: Computers in Physics 10, 14 (1996); doi: 10.1063/1.4822348 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4822348 View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/cip/10/1?ver=pdfcov Published by the AIP Publishing Articles you may be interested in Sometimes it’s the ref who fouls out Phys. Today 56, 71 (2003); 10.1063/1.1554153 Internet as teacher: Is it a virtual improvement? Phys. Today 54, 14 (2001); 10.1063/1.1359697 Physics Computing Moves Out of the Ivory Tower Comput. Phys. 11, 528 (1997); 10.1063/1.4822598 Corner Phys. Teach. 24, 430 (1986); 10.1119/1.2342074 AAPM moves its offices to Chicago Phys. Today 29, 80 (1976); 10.1063/1.3023443

Reuse of AIP Publishing content is subject to the terms at: https://publishing.aip.org/authors/rights-and-permissions. Download to IP: 104.249.167.68 On: Sat, 29 Oct 2016 19:30:20



INTERNET CORNER

THE INTERNET MOVES OUT OF ITS CORNER Glenn Ricart Department Editor: Glenn Ricart [email protected]

This month begins the last half-decade of this millennium. I. What will it bring for computing? I and many others are now convinced that it will be precisely this time period during which the network—the Internet—moves to center stage as the most important part of any information technology system. Windows 95—the last desktop? The personal computer has been the ubiquitous computing paradigm that dominated the 1991-1995 period. Personalproductivity tools were the focus of the industry, and localarea networks provided shared disk storage, printing, and e-mail. Everyone wished for their first Pentium-chip computer. The measure of computing was in megahertz and megabytes. The culmination of this movement was the media-hyped debut of Windows 95. It provided a new desktop and triggered new Windows 95–compatible releases of nearly every piece of microcomputer software in sight. But within two months of the public release of Windows 95, Wall Street analysts were downgrading their recommendations on Microsoft stock and placing a multibillion-dollar market value on a company with a reputed $20 million in revenues called Netscape. What happened? Windows 95, the Microsoft Office Suite, the Novell Perfect Office Suite, and the Lotus (IBM) SmartSuite have all but saturated the market's need for personal-productivity features. The paradigm curve they represent is becoming mature, and the breadth of features added is narrower with every release. The Internet value proposition Instead, the action has definitively turned to networking. With universities and some leading-edge companies leading the way, the Internet has been growing at 11% per month from 1991 to 1995. This growth has outpaced speed improvements in microprocessors, outrun the triennial quadrupling of memory sizes, and dwarfed the gains in local-area networks (CIP 8:1, 1994, p. 20). It now has grown to such a size that it has become mainstream. Examples of this phenomenon: • Daily newspapers review Web sites. • You are a nobody if your business card does not have an e-mail address on it. Glenn Ricart is senior vice president for advanced research and development at Novell Inc., Orem, UT. E-mail: [email protected]

• Prime-time TV and billboards hawk URLs. • The President has announced a plan to connect every school in America to the Internet. • Every major telecommunications company has announced an Internet service. The reason for this new popularity is that the incremental value proposition has moved from platform (the Intel and Apple computer desktops) and its software to the network. The network provides globally interconnected email, information of all sorts from the World Wide Web (CIP 8:3, 1994, p. 249), and an increasing number of interactive multimedia services. The value proposition consists of being connected to other people, being able to fetch information, and, increasingly, being able to conduct business. Center stage for the 'net-top' As a result, people are spending more and more of their time in e-mail programs, running Web browsers like Netscape and Mosaic, and having fun and finding value in being connected. But here is the interesting point: None of these programs really uses the fantastic computing power we have built into the personal computer over the past half-decade. The megahertz and the megabytes do not make any real difference compared to the new metric of productivity: your speed of connectivity to the Internet measured in kbits/s or Mbits/s (CIP 8:2, 1994, p. 146). Whether you are running Windows 95 or not no longer matters because your view has changed from being desktopcentric to network-centric. The browser is likely to become as important in the future as the desktop has been to date. Think of it: You do not want to see only what your computer has on its desktop; you want to see a selection of things present everywhere and anywhere in the network. You want a "nettop" instead of a "desk-top." That is just what Marc Andreessen, who cofounded Netscape, sees in Netscape's future. The operating system (DOS, Unix, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, MacOS) on which the network browser or "net-top" runs will be irrelevant. In fact, some companies are already rushing to develop "browser-only" computing devices. The good news is that these devices might be very inexpensive—something like $500 to $800. The only reason they need fast CPU capabilities is to render the increasingly sophisticated graphics found on the Internet. The only reason they need large memories is to be able to cache and store frequently chosen pages. Acceptable performance should be possible at prices much lower than desktops. At a $500 price point, the Internet explosion would find new fuel to continue its growth. Access points would become nearly ubiquitous. The smart car An automobile already contains several computers. Let us suppose that the ignition computer is specifying a full-rich mixture to optimize performance and that this mixture is out of normal operating range. With a $5 infrared light-emitting diode hidden behind the front grill, it could send signals like

Reuse of AIP content is subject to the terms at: https://publishing.aip.org/authors/rights-and-permissions. to IP: 104.249.167.68 On: Sat, 29 Oct 1996 AMERICAN INSTITUTE OFDownload PHYSICS 0894-1866/96/10(1)/14/2/$10.00 COMPUTERS IN PHYSICS, VOL. 10, NO. 1, JAN/FEB 1996 14 Publishing 2016 19:30:20

nounced that it will divide up its SmartSuite into dozens or those a TV remote sends to a receiver in the garage. And that perhaps hundreds of "components"—applets that can provide receiver might be connected wirelessly into a home network specialized functions like spell-checking in French. that is linked to the Internet. The car, realizing it is "out of spec," might automatically use the network to contact the manufacTwinmeheafkine? turer and seek advice. The manufacturer might download a The leading technology contender for applets is due to diagnostic program for the car's computer to run in order to get be announced this month—Java from Sun Microsystems. more information. For example, the diagnostic program might Java is a machine-independent and operating-system-indecollect a profile of engine parameters dwing the warm-up period. pendent language in which applets can be written. Sun' s With the data in hand, the manufacturer diagnoses a Java-enabled network browser, called Hot Java, can execute likely vacuum leak and notities the car. The car, in turn, uses the applets to provide much richer function on the screen than the Internet to contact two or three local shops (including the normal browsers can provide. shops you used the last several times, which the car rememJava itself is a language resembling C++. It is usually bers). In reporting its problem, the car also can specify the part numbers of parts that the manufacturer' s diagnostic proLearn More on the Web gram thought were most likely to need replacement. It turns out Information on the products and companies mentioned in this article may be found on the two of the shops have the parts World Wide Web at the URLs in the table below. needed in stock, and the third shop would use the Internet to http://www.applix.com Applix have a wholesaler deliver the Borland http://www.borland.com right parts via an overnight dehttp://java.sun.com Java livery service before you Lotus (IBM) brought the car in. http://www.lotus.com SmartSuite Finally, the car (or maybe http://www.microsoft.com Microsoft your house) breaks the bad http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/NCSAMosaicHome.html Mosaic news. Your car engine has a http://home.mcom.com/comprod/index.html Netscape probable vacuum leak. It is hurting performance and gas mileNovell http://www.novell.com age and likely to get worse. You Sun Microsystems http : / /ww . sun. c om can have a just-in-time appointSpyglass and Oracle did not yet discuss Java on their home pages at the time this article went to press. ment at this selection of shops at these times at these prices. With interpreted rather than compiled; that is, the browser usually your approval, the car or house uses the Internet to confirm reinterprets the Java as needed rather than converting it to the the appointment, notify the parts department to reserve the language of some specific hardware chip and operating sysneeded part, and brief the assigned mechanic so that he or she tem. Java is designed to provide a degree of isolation for the can begin work immediately when you pull in. You show up Java applet. This makes it both safer (since it cannot easily on time, and 20 minutes later you are back on the road. erase your disk) and more difficult to communicate with except through your mouse, screen, keyboard, and sound and The smart network video devices that are well-supported under Java. Intelligence is inexorably moving from the desktop to the network. In the future, instead of buying software for your Suddenly, Java makes it possible to write these small programs, applets, for the browser. Instead of the desktop desktop, you will buy services from the network. This change executing your programs, the browser will play that role. Winwill energize a whole new software industry that does not dows 95 might become irrelevant compared with Netscape. have the costs of distribution that today's industry and its cusI shall write more about Java in a future Internet Corner tomers bear. Shareware authors will have the option of being as things continue to flesh out. Already, however, Borland is paid per use of their programs. Need some spell-checking said to be building a tool set, to be called Latte, for developing done in French? No problem—the network can provide that Java applications. Applix is building a Java-based spreadservice. Using today's tools, just e-mail the text to the service sheet named Espresso that updates information in cells from and get back a batch-like response with potential misspelled the network in real time. Spyglass, Netscape, Oracle, Microwords and their likely replacements. With tomorrow's tools, you will be able to interact with the French spell-checker over soft, and IBM have all agreed to embed Java in their products. the network just as you now interact with your desktop. Sharing the bandwidth How can the spell-checking service provide a custom interaction with your desktop, such as providing a list of Right now, I share the computers with my wife and kids. In the future, they will all have their own access devices— potential alternatives upon which you can click? The answer is for the custom service to download a miniature application, these devices will be cheap. But we shall still have to share or "applet," that provides that kind of function. something: the bandwidth from the house to the rest of the This is not just wishful thinking. Lotus has already anInternet needed by the caffeine caravan. Reuse of AIP Publishing content is subject to the terms at: https://publishing.aip.org/authors/rights-and-permissions. Download to NO. IP: 1,104.249.167.68 COMPUTERS IN PHYSICS, VOL. 10, JAN/FEB 1996 On: 15 Sat, 29 Oct 2016 19:30:20