Internet 2.0? Internet 20.0!

"Japan working to replace the Internet"

For a long time I have been hearing some talks about the next generation of the Internet. And I don't count a movement from asp to .net, from standard to Ajax'd web-sites as a real generation step. All this cool technologies, like Flesh, Flex, Silverlight, Ajax, Asp.Net 1/2/3.. - all of them a really part of this current generation. This time I heard something tangible. But first of all, I have to explain myself about this generation thing.

Opposing to all customary belief, I believe that the lifetime of a internet generation is 20+- years, like in everything else in life. Of course, in the internet age there are so many changes in life that it is hard for us to compare it to what was before. Still, in my opinion, the belief that an internet generation lasts 2-3 years is wrong for the same reasons it was wrong to think that "The Old economy is Dead. Long live the New Economy" (a term that was invented in the mid 90's and caused a bankruptcy of millions - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_economy). Yes, it looks that the world is changing much faster then before - and it really does. But what it is changing into - we will know only after a couple of decades.

Back to the next generation of the internet, every couple of months i hear about some new developments on Http-NG (Next generation), IPv6 and some other stuff. But today is the first time I read about a real government (Japan) plan for the next generation of the internet, that should be activated in the year 2020. Here it is in a couple of words:

The Japan Minister of Communication announced, that an organization for developing and promoting the next generation network will be set up this fall with cooperation from businesses, academia and government offices. The envisaged network is expected to ensure faster and more reliable data transmission, and have more resilience against computer virus attacks and breakdowns.

I like science and science-fiction a lot! The common denominator between them is the imagination of the future. And when I see a stable government like Japan begin to plan the future I get excited. It is the same as when Pr. Bush announced 2 years ago about creating a permanent base on the Moon in 2020(see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6208456.stm).

so cool... I realy wonder, How will the world look like in 2020? 2040? 2100?
Hope to be there to see it...

Here is a link to the full story: http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/japan_working_to_replace_the_internet.php