Computer in Use. Маркушевская Л.П - 47 стр.

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Университет ИТМО | Санкт-Петербург

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47
more common operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh,
this new tool was immediately picked up by the Internet community.
The World-Wide Web, the simplicity of Internet access for private individuals,
as well as the increasing user-friendliness of the software necessary to master the
Internet protocols contributed to the meteoric rise of network use in the 1990s.
Browsing through the original WWW proposal reveals an irony very
characteristic to the development of the Internet, in the face of its author's assertion
that "the project will not aim to do research into multimedia facilities such as sound
and video." In 1996 the present and future of the Internet, and the WWW in
particular, points to a convergence of media types, and multimedia has indeed
become the catch phrase of the day. Despite serious limitations in contemporary
network capacity as far as to sound and video, new technologies constantly enable the
increase of interactive network experiences. This development is supplemented by a
constant innovation in hardware; today's Internet backbones transmit data packets at a
speed up to 200 megabits per second (by comparison, the NSFNET backbone of 1986
ran at the blazing speed of 56 kilobits per second). Today the modems of most
Internet users run at a speed of 28.8 kbit/s and a digital connection can deliver at a
speed of up to 128 kbit/s, but the possibility of using the fiber optic cables bringing
cable TV to millions of homes, for Internet data transmission opens up for private
connections running at a speed of up to 10 Mbit/s. Another new technology, ASDL,
promises to use the existing telephone copper wires for even higher transmission
speeds.
But what will these network technologies deliver to the Internet user? In 1996
commercial Internet hosts have overtaken educational and governmental applications
and these commercial interests clearly consider the Internet, and the WWW in
particular, as a vehicle for online advertising and commerce. Hence the Net user of
today can be described as a consumer. The Internet is still a powerful medium for
communication, and has in many ways fulfilled the vision of interactive computing
which fueled J.C.R Licklider's imagination, but it remains to be seen whether it will
be the democratizing medium of the 21st century, or merely become another static-
filled television channel.
Notes:
household item - предмет домашнего обихода
span of time - промежуток времени
to submit a proposal - высказать предложение
catch phrase - фраза дня
COMPREHENSION CHECK
Exercise 1. Replace the passages in their logical order.
1) When the protocols were formed, much of the software and services that make
up the Internet appeared. The basic services for remote connectivity, file transfer,
and electronic mail were introduced in the mid and late seventies. The Usenet

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