Colloquium Details
Distinguished Lecture Series - Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century
| Author: | Vint Cerf Google |
|---|---|
| Date: | October 17, 2008 |
| Time: | 11:00 |
| Location: | Ford Lecture Hall, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon |
| Host: | Andrzej Proskurowski |
Abstract
The Internet has become a global phenomenon since its original introduction to a limited part of the academic world in January 1983. The research upon which it was based began in the 1960's with the exploration of packet-switching concepts as alternative to conventional telephony circuit switching. In the intervening 40 or so years, the Internet has evolved in significant ways, but it has also left unresolved a number of issues that need attention. In this talk, we will briefly explore a few highlights of the Internet's evolution and then look at some of the new anticipated applications that are foreseeable. We will look at current statistics and some projections for the growth of the Internet and where its users will be.
A number of research problems remain to be solved and we will highlight some of them. The Internet could be used much more effectively in classroom settings and in facilitating collaborative research, study and laboratory activities. Because the content of the World Wide Web is highly varied in quality, and because not all of the information relevant to our needs is online, we need to learn to exercise considerable critical thinking as we search for information in this vast system of shared content. Finding ways to identify and qualify the sources of information as well as its meaning is another major challenge, as is retaining the ability to interpret the meaning of the increasingly complex digital objects that are the result of running applications in laptops or cloud computing environments.
There are many policy issues raised by the increasing importance of this networking in daily living, business, academia and government. We will explore some of these and then take a moment to look a the extension of the Internet to operate across the Solar system.
For video of the actual lecture, please see UO Libweb archive copy.
Biography
Vinton G. Cerf is Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. In this role, he is responsible for identifying new enabling technologies to support the development of advanced, Internet-based products and services from Google. He is also an active public face for Google in the Internet world.
Widely known as one of the "Fathers of the Internet," Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. In December 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his colleague, Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet. Kahn and Cerf were named the recipients of the ACM Alan M. Turing award in 2004 for their work on the Internet protocols. The Turing award is sometimes called the "Nobel Prize of Computer Science." In November 2005, President George Bush awarded Cerf and Kahn the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their work. The medal is the highest civilian award given by the United States to its citizens. Cerf is a Fellow of the IEEE, ACM, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Engineering Consortium, the Computer History Museum, the Annenberg Center for Communications at USC and the National Academy of Engineering.
This lecture is presented in collaboration with The Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC) and UO Information Services along with UO Libraries.