Mobile phone to be main Web tool in 2020: Survey

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 17 December 2008, 20:20 IST   |    1 Comments
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Mobile phone to be main Web tool in 2020: Survey
Bangalore: Browsing the internet in computers may be a thing of the past with a survey predicting that mobile devices will be more popular to connect to the web. "The mobile phone, now with significant computing power, is the primary Internet connection and the only one for a majority of the people across the world, providing information in a portable, well-connected form at a relatively low price," said the survey. "A strong undercurrent of anxiety runs through these experts' answers. They are quite sure the Internet and cell phones will continue to advance at an amazing clip, but they are not at all sure people will make the same kind of progress as they embrace better, faster, cheaper gadgets," said Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Artificial and virtual reality will also have become more embedded in everyday life, according to the Pew survey, 'Future of the Internet III' which surveyed hundreds of Internet leaders, activists and analysts. The experts were asked in an online survey conducted with Elon University in North Carolina to predict advances and the role of technology in 2020. They agreed that advances in mobile phone technology would be among the most significant developments in the years to come. While 77 percent of 578 experts surveyed said they "mostly agree" with the statement, 22 percent said they "mostly disagree" and one percent did not respond. Moreover, majority of the leaders of the web said that talk and touch will be common technology interfaces in 2020. However, internet bellwethers are of the view that copyright protection would not make much advances on the free-wheeling Internet in the years to come. Infact, the leaders believe that technology will give people the power to be stronger actors in the political and economic world, but that won't necessarily make it a kinder, gentler world."