INTERNET ON HAND

We are quite close to having internet everywhere.

I am always please to see people walking around with cell phones in hand or fussing with an iPod, because it shows just how accustomed we have become to having small portable connected devices around us at all times. These devices don’t just make calls or play music, they keep us connected and facilitate social networking, which is the lifeblood of the net. I am occasionally tickled at the phenomena of text messaging, which by all outward appearances is a technological step backwards, something like the equivalent of going from cell phones back to pagers, but bitches like textin.

But the internet is dynamic and complicated in a way that doesn’t translate well to small portable devices, so having the internet everywhere is a really tough problem that has yet to see a real good solution. My PDA works in a pinch, but the technology is now about 4 years old and can only provide a stripped down, slow internet that is visually unappealing and functionally unsatisfying. I am told that iPhones are decent, but I haven’t had much experience with them so I can’t say for sure. It is probably the closest we’ve come yet, but Apple products strike me as more like a fashion accessory than a useful tool. I want an internet leatherman, not a katana. I’d like to get my hands on a Nokia N810 (attn christmas shoppers) since I don’t really care about having a phone as much as I need the internet. The N810 runs linux, and it looks like you can dig in and customize it as you see fit (once the software gets written, that is), and that seems to make it well suited to the needs of the net. At the other end of the spectrum, I think Amazon’s Kindle shows amazing promise at providing the content, if not the form, of the net, and it is a brilliant move to offer wiki browsing free of charge. It may be easy to write off eBooks as novelty products, but it really drives home the importance of tangible text, which after all is part of the strength and popularity of text messaging. Five or so generations down the line, coupled with better eInk technology, and the Kindle will be an amazing product. I am not prone to futurist speculation, but I imagine that in the not too distant future a spiritual successor of the Kindle will eventually replace the cell phone as part of an individual’s standard equipment.

Bringing the internet everywhere isn’t that hard; even Chumby can do it. But talk of ‘bringing the internet’ to our local environment can sometimes hide the fact that the net itself is already embodied and embedded in the world around us, in the signals we send and the wires we lay. And it is easy to take that infrastructure for granted, even if it is still sometimes noticeably disruptive and imperfect. But more importantly, the idea of everywhere internet depends on that infrastructure expanding rapidly and filling in every nook and cranny on the planet. Such goals are stifled by the sort of legislation that theHouse passed last Wednesday that targets internet providers (possibly including unsecure WiFi broadcasters) to fines in order to try and stop child pornography. Good luck with that. But the point is that censorship always overextends its reach. In this case, the internet itself comes under threat.

The internet, one of humanity’s greatest resources, must be defended from such attacks. Any attempt to stifle the growth, strength, and ubiquity of the net is a threat to humanity itself and should not be tolerated.