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📝 The paper “Emergent Tool Use from Multi-Agent Interaction” is available here: https://openai.com/blog/emergent-tool-use/
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A new database aims to make it easier than ever to access and search through the world’s massive trove of research papers.
Each year, millions of scientific and academic papers get published across thousands of journals. The majority of those papers lie behind paywalls, costing $9 to $30 (or more) to read. Finding them can be difficult: Tools like Google Scholar allow you to search for paper titles and keywords, but more specialized queries are difficult.
The General Index was designed to reduce those obstacles without breaking the law. Developed by the technologist Carl Malamud and his nonprofit foundation Public Resource, the free-to-use index contains words and phrases from more than 107 million research papers, comprising 8.5 terabytes when compressed.
❤️ Check out Weights & Biases here and sign up for a free demo: https://www.wandb.com/papers ❤️ Their blog post is available here: https://www.wandb.com/articles/better-paths-through-idea-space
📝 The paper “Emergent Tool Use from Multi-Agent Interaction” is available here: https://openai.com/blog/emergent-tool-use/
❤️ Watch these videos in early access on our Patreon page or join us here on YouTube: - https://www.patreon.com/TwoMinutePapers - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbfYPyITQ-7l4upoX8nvctg/join
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The blockchain revolution, online gaming and virtual reality are powerful new technologies that promise to change our online experience. After summarizing advances in these hot technologies, we use the collective intelligence of our TechCast Experts to forecast the coming Internet that is likely to emerge from their application.
Here’s what learned:
Security May Arrive About 2027 We found a sharp division of opinion, with roughly half of our experts thinking there is little or no chance that the Internet would become secure — and the other half thinks there is about a 60% probability that blockchain and quantum cryptography will solve the problem at about 2027. After noting the success of Gilder’s previous forecasts, we tend to accept those who agree with Gilder.
DecentralizationLikely About 2028–2030 We find some consensus around a 60% Probability and Most Likely Year About 2028–2030. The critical technologies are thought to focus on blockchain, but quantum, AI, biometrics and the Internet of things (IoT) also thought to offer localizing capabilities.
Immersion Highly Likely About 2031–2032 The experts show good agreement on a 70% probability that immersive capabilities will arrive about 2031–2032. They also suggest a variety of technologies will make this possible: blockchain, VR and AR, gaming, AI, IoT and a useful brain-computer interface.
EMERGING INTERNET TECHNOLOGIES
The Blockchain Revolution George Gilder’s latest book, Life After Google, is a landmark forecast on what he calls the “cryptocosm.” Like his earlier book, Microcosm, which forecast the Information Technology Revolution caused by microchips, followed by Telecosm, which forecast today’s explosion of wireless technology, the cryptocosm extends major advances in blockchain technology into all spheres of the Internet.
Gilder thinks the cryptocosm will produce a web that overthrows the top-down monopolies of Google, Facebook, Amazon and the other tech giants that have created a web that is insecure, clumsy and destined to fail. Using stunning examples of brilliant technological advances by pioneering entrepreneurs, Life After Google promises an Internet that is secure, private, decentralized and controlled by users rather than the tech giants.
In Gilder’s terms:
“Google is hierarchical. Life after Google will be heterarchical. Google is top-down. Life after Google will be bottom-up. Google rules by the insecurity of the lower layers in the stack. A porous stack enables the money and power to be sucked up to the top. In Life after Google, a secure ground state in the individual, registered and timestamped in a digital ledger, will prevent this suction of hierarchical power.”
A telling sign is that China is leading the blockchain revolution. In October of 2019, Premier Xi Jinping called on the nation to “seize the opportunity of blockchain technology as a new security architecture for the Internet.” In April 25, 2020, China launched its national blockchain platform, the Blockchain Service Network (BSN). In time, Xi plans to replace their national currency and other currencies around the globe with new digital systems.
Advanced Gaming
Related breakthroughs are underway as gaming technology becomes vividly immersive, interactive, intelligent and 3 dimensional — creating the famed Metaverse pioneered a
few years ago by Second Life. Nintendo’s Animal Crossing, Facebook’s Horizon, Epic Games’ Fortnite, Minecraft, and other contenders are blazing a path that seems likely to move virtual reality from expensive headsets into everyday life on the web. There were 2.6 billion people playing games globally in 2017, producing revenue of $100 billion.
Jacob Novak, CEO Genvid Technologies, expects the web to become “a mix of game engines, interactivity and video… game engines will be the primary way people will have interfaces with the Internet.”
Travis Scott, a celebrated gamer in Fortnite, thinks “As VR and AR evolve, we’ll be able to build truly immersive virtual worlds.”
Virtual Reality
After years of sluggish growth in VR, we are seeing the convergence of the Internet, high-resolution graphical interfaces, greater computing power, motion sensors, 3D modeling, digital games, and social networking. We also see the rise of augmented reality (AR) – digital information laid over the real-world environment. Experts think these diverse virtual environments will converge into a virtual metaverse. TechCast expects VR to reach mainstream adoption about 2023 + 3/- 1 years and the market will reach about US$550 billion when it hits saturation level about 2030.
VR is also finding its way into business applications. Here’s how Kevin Cardona, head of innovation at BNP Paribas, said it benefits their company: “We are truly convinced that we need to invest in the technology because it will help us to be a company active in 50 countries around the world with clients all over the world.”
Here are other prominent forecasts:
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg thinks “Immersive 3D is the obvious next thing after video.”
Heather Bellini, an executive at Goldman Sachs, thinks: “VR and AR will be as transformative as the smartphone.”
Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson, authors of Infinite Reality, expect a future where “your avatar fills in for you at virtual meetings while you do something more important.”
COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE OF TECHCAST EXPERTS
After giving the TechCast experts this background information on leading technologies, we asked them to estimate the prospects for security, decentralization and immersion on the Internet. Results are summarized below.
Security
The most striking feature of our data shows dramatically different views on the prospects for improving security. One group of 8 responses averages less than a 20% probability this will happen, and another group of 9 responses averages more than an 80% probability. A similar bi-modal distribution shows 10 people with an average “most likely year” of about 2027, while another group of 8 averages much later than 2040. The good news is that both groups seem to agree that blockchain and quantum cryptography are the likely technologies to make this happen, with the help of AI.
With such starkly divided opinion, additional insight seems needed to reconcile this impasse. Both cannot be correct. Yes, George Gilder’s claim is hard to accept, but he has been proven correct on similar forecasts. That’s why The Economist called him “America’s foremost technology prophet.”
Here’s how Gilder sums up his forecast in Life After Google: “Some thousands of companies you’ve never heard of are investing billions in that effort [to fix the lack of security on the internet]. Collectively they will give birth to a new network whose most powerful architectural imperative will be security of transactions… So fundamental will security be to this new system that it’s very name will be derived from it. It will be the cryptocosm…”
Marc Andreessen, the billionaire who invented the first web browser, endorsed Gilder’s forecast for blockchain when he told The Washington Post: “This is the big breakthrough. This is the thing we’ve been waiting for… [Gilder] should get the Nobel prize… Hundreds or thousands of applications and companies that could get built on top [of this]…”
Looking over this evidence, we are more impressed by Gilder and his supporters. Our best forecast is that blockchain and quantum cryptography, along with a dash of AI, are likely to introduce a secure form of Internet about 2027. It may also require tougher laws, and it may not be perfect as some glitches are always possible, of course. But TechCast thinks it is coming and long overdue. Serious doubts are normal, of course, but we think the doubts may be what Arthur C. Clarke attributed to “failures of imagination and will.”
Decentralization
The possibility of decentralizing the web into a bottom up system that is no longer dominated by the big tech giants seems more plausible to our respondents. There remains a wide distribution of estimates in the bar charts below, but not a bi-polar distribution. Although many think there is zero probability this will happen, other responses form a fairly normal distribution averaging about 60%. Timing is also less divided, suggesting that these changes are likely to arrive about 2028–2030. The responsible technologies are thought to focus on blockchain, but quantum, AI, biometrics and the Internet of things (IoT) also thought to offer localizing capabilities. I suspect George Gilder would largely agree with this forecast.
The need to decentralize control is gaining some traction. Dfinity is building what it calls the internet computer, a decentralized technology spread across a network of independent data centers that allows software to run anywhere on the internet, rather than in server farms that are increasingly controlled by large firms. It’s planning a public release later this year. However, a free-for-all internet could make it difficult to hold app makers accountable. It could also require a decentralized form of governance which could lead to infighting. It’s not the first to try to remake the internet, so can it succeed where others have failed? Read the full story.
Immersion
Unlike Security and Decentralization, our experts tend to agree on the feasibility of sensory immersion in the Internet. The bar charts show a distribution centered around 70% probability and a most likely year of 2031–2032 when immersion arrives. They also suggest a variety of technologies will make this possible: blockchain, VR and AR, gaming, AI, IoT and a useful brain-computer interface. Gilder would be proud of these results.
Despite pockets of doubt and uncertainty, we think this study tells a compelling story about evolution of the Internet. The continuing advance of computer power, possibly using quantum, nanotech and photonic technologies, is likely to make complex blockchain platforms feasible over the coming decade. Along with applications of quantum crypto and AI, a new generation of Web systems is likely to greatly improve security and move control from tech companies to individuals. Some confusion and security failures will remain, of course, but glitches will be accepted by a younger cohort of users. The development of richer Internet experiences using VR/AR/XR, biometrics, AI, the IoT and holograms is very likely to bloom into the Metaverse long anticipated. Obviously, many other trends will also play important roles in the new Internet, as noted in our experts’ comments.
The strategic implications should be formidable. The status and control of the large tech companies is likely to shift to users, and the Internet service providers (Verizon, Comcast, etc.) may face competition from satellite systems flooding the air with cheap and abundant access. Apple and Elon Musk are launching satellites even now and expect to envelop the Earth with high-capacity broadband in a year or two. In addition to fierce competition from these new sources, the entire supply chain of ICT equipment and services will be disrupted by an advanced generation of suppliers. Users should gain more sophisticated and immersive capabilities that are needed for the high-tech society ahead.
CONCLUSION
This is small study, but TechCast thinks it illustrates the power of using collective intelligence to provide authoritative strategic analyses of hot topics. This study outlines the new Internet architecture that promises to revolutionize life online. The normal doubts are there, of course, but this authoritative analysis strongly indicates that we should see a different Internet emerge during this decade that is secure, decentralized and immersive.
No matter how cheap or fast paid internet service gets, the Internet of Things (IOT) won’t take wings until we have ubiquitous access to a completely decentralized, open-standard network that does not require a provider subscription. This month, we may be a step closer.
Let’s talk about internet connected gadgets. Not just your phone or PC—and not even a microwave oven or light bulb. Instead, think of everyday objects that are much smaller and much less expensive. Think of things that seemingly have no need to talk with you.
Now think of applications in which these tiny things need to communicate with each other and not just with you. Think of the cost of this “thing” compared to the added cost of continuous communications. Do so many things really need to talk in the first place?
First, there were Trackers…
Have you tried one of those tracking devices that help you find a lost bicycle or wallet? Tile is the most visible brand. They offer trackers shaped like dog tag, a fat button or a credit card. They recently began offering users the ability to replace the battery. In the past, you had to buy new trackers every year.
Trackers are useful, but connectivity is either…
Very expensive: Each devices requires a mobile phone data plan —or—
Intermittent and short range: Tile uses Bluetooth and relies on a community of owners to “pick up” on your lost or stolen object. This only occurs if another user stumbles into close range range and with their Tile app active on a mobile phone.
Tile was cool in its heyday, but that day is passing as we transition into the Internet of Things (IOT). It took me a few years to fully embrace the need for an internet of “things” or how it differs from the internet that we use every day. In an effort to more quickly bring about your own Ahahh! moment, consider just one example.
The Chandelier (an example with apologies to Sia)
Consider a huge chandelier across the domed ceiling of a grand opera house. It has 85,000 tiny LEDs that can throb and pulse during animated light shows. Each individual light is replaceable—only 10¢. But getting a scaffold and a maintenance crew to the 50 foot dome takes 6 hours and costs almost $500.
Every month, one or two of the tiny lights go dark (or get stuck on the wrong color). Fortunately, expensive maintenance can be delayed. A few bad LEDs cannot be seen from the auditorium below. They are only a problem when many lights go dark:
a) More than 2% of bulbs —OR— b) More than 8 bulbs in any cubic region of 250 LEDs —OR— c) More than 3 bulbs positioned at a critical juncture of special-effect animation d) Any LED programmed to be green for more than 250 mS during the Disney Little-Mermaid animation
These minimum operating conditions may sound complex, but they were determined at the time of installation by a meticulous trial with a focus group and survey forms. Dozens of volunteers looked up at the chandelier and watched several programmed light shows.
Trying to count faulty lights and measure them against these criteria before each performance is nearly impossible. Should we chuck these standards and just leave the maintenance decision in the hands of whomever is managing the facility each night?
No. Standards are good. There is a better way.
Imagine if all the little LEDs could communicate with each other and generate a weighted vote as to whether maintenance is required. Now, imagine that the added circuitry to communicate between LEDs—and even to managers and maintenance staff—cost no more than the LED itself. Just pennies for the circuit. No communications infrastructure or subscription is needed at all.
This example may seem a bit extreme, but it is taken from real life, and a perfect example of the Internet of Things. This is just the beginning. As IOT takes off, a connected society will venture far beyond Bluetooth trackers into applications that we cannot yet imagine.
But how will the internet things be connected—especially if so many devices are tiny, inexpensive and portable? We cannot expect every dog collar and portable asset to have a mobile subscription plan and an IMEI/MEID.
And short range tracking (like the Bluetooth Tile) is not too helpful for keeping tabs on your dog when he gets off leash. Or perhaps you want to track an asset that is less precious—for example, a soccer ball. You don’t just want to find it, you want to study game dynamics as it is kicked across a field. What about your favorite earrings? They belonged to your great grandmother. Imagine that they could never be misplaced. With IOT, everything possible. Apps and benefits are heading toward us like a freight train.
IOT doesn’t require 5G speed, but to be truly transformative, it requires ubiquitous, low-power and free connectivity. Coverage must be thorough, at least at a community level.
Do We Really Need IOT?
You bet we do! Just envision possibilities.
With miniaturization and the rapidly dropping cost of electronics, there are some tiny or inexpensive things could benefit greatly by constant connectivity. Today, my washing machine and air conditioner are WiFi enabled. Connectivity is even built into light bulbs.
But early connected smart home gadgets are designed primarily to talk within a home. When traveling, you might want an alert if water is leaking into the cellar. But let’s face it: When at the office or on vacation, most people don’t care to dim the kitchen lights or know when a load of laundry is ready for transfer to the dryer.
This is starting to change. Gadget makers all over the world are preparing for an era of remarkable information and utility that will emerge when devices communicate not just with their owners, but with each other. When tiny things can talk, a world with free, ubiquitous and redundant connectivity, will bring unexpected and remarkable benefits.
How to Get from Here to There?
All this requires simple, free and ubiquitous wide area networking. Most analysts expect that the brave new world will take wings until a popular, widely deployed internet access method emerges—one that does not require a service provider.
Does free internet access, with community wide coverage and a sustainable business model exist?
Enter the people’s network: The Helium hotspot. With a splashy adoption campaign, it is positioned to be the first successful mass-deployment of a very long range, low power signalling standard. If successful, Helium could jump start a category of access and coverage that is just what is needed for the next big thing.
The Helium hotspot, is a crossover between a residential router, and community internet access. Most importantly, it disintermediates the process. No ISP? Don’t worry! It is not required to get into the game and to enjoy significant benefits.
I think of Helium as Rooftop Communications on steroids (an early community mesh network that was way ahead its time). If 5 or more individuals in a typical city set up their own hotspot, every user enjoys shared community access to the Internet—even if only one of participant has internet service. In fact, a bridge to the legacy internet is not even an issue to access resources and data within the community. Every town service, store, event, school and library is online without anyone having a paid subscription to any service provider.
Helium is just beginning to roll out across the world. Early adopters acquire a Helium hotspot and they effectively “own” their city. At first, it works at moderately low speeds and over very long distances. Only a few are needed to kick start a city. When 20 or 30 residents join the party, network speed, coverage, consistency and overall utility become compelling. Not 5G or 4G—but capable of servicing critical needs on the go or as a back up method of Internet access. When this clever IOT network gets traction, it will eventually service most internet needs other than video.
Helium is the first Consumer product to use the low-power LoRa radio standard (Helium calls it “LongFi”). User owned Hotspots form a super mesh-network that the company hopes will cover entire continents. Unlike your router or smartphone hotspot, with Helium, there is no ISP or cell tower. Your neighbors are your peers and your entry ramp to the internet for services that are still on a legacy, subscriber network.
Enter The Blockchain: Seriously—Adoption It is token powered!
As if this weren’t exciting enough, Helium adoption is powered by a blockchain—like Bitcoin. No kidding!
Don’t let this deter you from testing Helium and taking control of your own city. Regardless of your opinion on Bitcoin and crypto, the blockchain is a clever lever to incentivize and reward adoption.
Helium hotspot ads are everywhere, but the first LongFi router is not cheap. Buyers are investing in the long game. Early adopters won’t find immediate value in hosting other users, but you will be amply rewarded as the technology is adopted. Hence, a blockchain token reward mechanism. The Helium reward token a functional cryptocurrency token. Some call it an Independent Coin Offering (ICO). Whaaat?! Hold on! Aren’t ICOs rip-offs?…
I have broad contempt for ICOs (they are all scams!). This fervent opinion forced me to carefully evaluate my enthusiasm for Helium. It almost led me to abandon research and look for an alternate long-range, decentralized communications ecosystem.
But the blockchain does not necessarily make for a bad actor. A functional token with no underlying pyramid scheme is not an ICO. It is a clever mechanism to encourage viral adoption of a chicken-and-egg technology; one that offers enormous public benefit.
Technology Application & Business Model
LoRa can achieve competitive web access speeds at 1~3 Km. Helium hotspots will more likely have mesh-hand-off spacing of 15~20 Km at first. This results in a signal of 5 kbps or less. Depending on how effective are the hotspot and hand-off incentives, Helium may ultimately compete with sky-based WiFi, satellite schemes or community WiFi as a free moderate-speed, internet service.Helium is intended for IOT devices, but can also be used as a last mile layer for user Internet access. During the early build out of infrastructure in any region, it is clearly optimized for low speed IOT communications.
Conclusion:
Helium doesn’t completely satisfy requirements that we set forth in the very first paragraph above. I assume that it uses a proprietary standard to poll and packetize data. (I am not sure of this. Perhaps someone working with the project reach out with a clarification). And at $495 for a long range, low power Helium hotspot/router, it may be a bit early for all but the most bold entrepreneur to experiment with Helium. If you don’t live in a large and densely populated urban area, you are unlikely to find many peers with whom to share spectrum, data and gateways.
But if you open your mind to the possibilities: tools, gadgets and services that can benefit from private networks or municipal infrastructure that was previously the exclusive domain of town governments, railroads and first responders… If you can imagine these things—or a profitable role in accommodating these things—then a personal Helium Hotspot may be in your future.
I plan to jump in with both feet. I will be shaping my career around Helium. It’s a bit early, but that’s the whole point. For me, it is a gamble worth taking.
You might take it for granted that you can load up Twitter or browse through Reddit whenever you like, but around half of the 7.7 billion people living on the planet right now aren’t yet able to get online.
And that’s a big problem, according to one researcher. Merten Reglitz, a philosopher and global ethics lecturer from the University of Birmingham in the UK says internet access should be established as a basic human right that everyone is entitled to.
“Internet access is a unique and non-substitutable way for realising fundamental human rights such as free speech and assembly,” he writes in a new paper.
We face complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty about the future consequences of cryptocurrency use. There are doubts about the positive and negative impacts of the use of cryptocurrencies in the financial systems. In order to address better and deeper the contradictions and the consequences of the use of cryptocurrencies and also informing the key stakeholders about known and unknown emerging issues in new payment systems, we apply two helpful futures studies tools known as the “Future Wheel”, to identify the key factors, and “System Dynamics Conceptual Mapping”, to understand the relationships among such factors. Two key scenarios will be addressed. In on them, systemic feedback loops might be identified such as a) terrorism, the Achilles’ heel of the cryptocurrencies, b) hackers, the barrier against development, and c) information technology security professionals, a gap in the future job market. Also, in the other scenario, systemic feedback loops might be identified such as a) acceleration of technological entrepreneurship enabled by new payment systems, b) decentralization of financial ecosystem with some friction against it, c) blockchain and shift of banking business model, d) easy international payments triggering structural reforms, and e) the decline of the US and the end of dollar dominance in the global economy. In addition to the feedback loops, we can also identify chained links of consequences that impact productivity and economic growth on the one hand, and shift of energy sources and consumption on the other hand.
In the 90s, how could we access the internet without WiFi?
This post began as an answer to that question at Quora. In the process of answering, I compiled this history of public, residential Internet access. Whether you lived through this fascinating social and technical upheaval or simply want to explore the roots of a booming social phenomenon, I hope you will find the timeline and evolution as interesting as I do.
I have included my answer to Tamia’s question, below. But first, let’s get a quick snapshot of the highlights. This short bullet-list focuses on technical milestones, but the history below, explains the context, social phenomenon and implications.
Short Version:
1965 Hypertext link defined 1970s TCP/IP packet protocol 1983 TCP adopted by Arpanet 1989~91 Http protocol 1991 Public access begins 1995 Netscape Mozilla (1st browser)
— Scroll below Q&A for context and commentary* —
Question: In the 90s, how could we access the internet without WiFi?
Answer: We didn’t need WiFI in the 1990s and we don’t need it now. In both era’s, you can simply attach your PC to the internet with a network cable. If your PC does not have an Ethernet port, you can add a miniature USB-Ethernet adapter. They are inexpensive.
Likewise, before internet service was available to almost every home and business, you could access the internet via telephone modem, or by visiting a library, internet cafe or office that had a leased line for fast access.*
In each case, adoption goes hand in hand with infrastructure build-out, cost reduction and (in the case of WiFi), the desire to move about the home or community more freely.
*A brief history of Public Internet Access
1965: The concept of “hypertext” and clickable “links”. But demonstrations were limited to a single computer or a local network. The first mouse was patented in 1967. But for the next 15 years, few people used a mouse or pointing device.
1970s: The Internet and its predecessor, the Arpanet, was a constellation of networked terminal access tools that connected universities and research labs. Finding material and accessing it required command line jargon that limited its use. You could access the web and most standards were in place—but there was no universal browser that incorporated hypertext links.
1983: Apple introduces the Lisa (predecessor to the Macintosh). It included a mouse, which most people had never used before. Not to be outdone, Microsoft offered an aftermarket Mouse for $195 which came bundled with Word and Notepad.
1991: The public gained access in 1991 after Tim Berners-Lee, posted a summary of the project and the http standard that he pioneered.
1995: Netscape introduces Mozilla (later renamed Netscape browser). It kicked off a gradual migration of data from FTP and Usenet servers to web pages (http protocol) and an explosion in services and subscribers.
Final Impediments to Adoption: Complexity & Connection infrastructure
In-home use still required special equipment (a telephone modem) and applications had to be installed from a CD or multiple floppy discs. These apps modified the operating system by adding a TCP stack and a Windows Socket API. Prior to these things being bundled into new PCs, the process was a daunting. And so, for the next 10 years, many people accessed the internet from Internet cafes, schools or libraries.
1999: The WiFi standard was introduced in 1997. But it had technical limitations that limited its appeal. In 1997, 802.11b, the first widely used and supported WiFi standard, brought the freedom of movement into homes. This occurred at around the same time that many people were moving from a desktop or tower computer to a laptop.
WiFi-b and later g and n helped to propel convenient Internet access from anywhere within a home. Over the next decade, consumers came to expect an available WiFi signal in offices, schools, restaurants, hotels and airports.
2003: Rise of Social Media
Myspace wasn’t the first social media platform. Friendster beat it out by almost a year. But Myspace was the first to go viral and nationwide among many demographics. Along with Facebook—which eclipsed Myspace in subscriber growth—social media platforms turned many infrequent users into constantly-connected consumers.
Friendster March 2002
MySpace August 2003
Facebook February 2004
Twitter March 2006
2007: Apple and AT&T introduced the iPhone in the summer. Prior to 2007, flip phones offered web access via a crude browser built into Palm or Symbion, the OS used by Palm Pilot, Nokia, Motorola and others. But the iPhone kicked off the Smart Phone, a new category of must-have consumer gadgets, which lead to ubiquitous, mobile internet access.
2007: Apple and AT&T introduced the iPhone in the summer. Prior to 2007, flip phones offered web access via a crude browser built into Palm or Symbion, the OS used by Palm Pilot, Nokia, Motorola and others. But the iPhone kicked off the Smart Phone, a new category of must-have consumer gadgets, which lead to ubiquitous, mobile internet access.
1995 ~ 2020
Gradually, the Internet become a mass market phenomenon. But slow connection speeds and the need to suspend telephone calls limited its use. Between 1978 and 1996, telephone modems gradually improved technology from 300 bps to 56,000 Baud (access at ~25 kbps).
After 1996, consumers gradually switched away from using their telephone lines to a dedicated internet service. Homes connect to an ISP (Internet Service Provider) via either existing phone wire (ISDN), TV cables, Fiberoptic or Wireless-to-home.
Today (2019), it is not uncommon to have residential internet access via a Gigabit fiberoptic connection.
— Image credit: 1) Malone Media Group 2) Chris Galloway
Today we have an interview with Sci-Hub creator, Alexandra Elbakyan who is committed to the free flow of scientific knowledge and is challenging the unfair journal system which charges outrageous fees to view scientific publications.
Hiding scientific knowledge behind paywalls
Around 70% of scientific publications are hidden behind paywalls, restricting access to knowledge and progress. We believe that this is unfair and that putting profit before the health of others is morally repugnant, and this is part of why we support the concept of Open Science, particularly the work of Alexandra Elbakyan.
