Your Internet Consultant - The FAQs of Life Online
1.28. So is this the Information superhighway?
Oh, how I hate that phrase. The so-called information superhighway (also
known as the infobahn in those sleek cybermedia magazines) is a phrase
used by newspapers and television news reporters who don't know how better to
describe new technology that they don't quite understand. Not that the term is
overused, but I've heard the information superhighway used to refer to
the Internet, to television-top boxes that will deliver movies on demand, and
to personal digital assistants like Apple's Newton. (One of the local TV news
shows in Northern California even used the term to describe a program in which
college students repair computers from circa 1980 to give to grammar schools.
That's the information superhighway?)
At any rate, call it what you will: the Internet is one part of a future where
more people will have easier, less expensive access to technology. That
technology could reshape our lives, or we might only be able to order pizza
delivery from an on-screen menu. We can only wait and see.
No one can quite define it, but we will know it when we see it.
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