Internet
The Internet is a global network of interconnected smaller computer networks. Data is transmitted between computers and networks in small packets using the Internet Protocol (IP); they are reassembled at their destination. It originated in the work of DARPA, a research division of the United States Army.
Origin
The conceptual foundation for the internet's creation was significantly developed by three individuals and a research conference, each of which changed the way we thought about communication, business and the exchange of technology:
- Vannevar Bush wrote the first description of the potential uses for information technology with his description of the "memex" automated library system.
- Norbert Wiener invented the field of Cybernetics, encouraging future researchers to focus on the use of technology to extend human capabilities.
- The 1956 Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence conference defined the concept that technology was improving at an exponential rate, and provided the first serious consideration of the consequences, the benefits and advantages or such a network.
- Marshall McLuhan made the idea of a global village interconnected by an electronic nervous system part of our popular culture. [1]
Description
The Internet is sometimes also known as "cyberspace." Sometimes it is inaccurately referred to as the Web or the World Wide Web, because the Web is only one of numerous protocols that operate on the Internet.
The common protocol used to access websites (including this one) is the Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The creator of this is Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who recently in an online magazine article claimed that given the opportunity, he wouldn't use the HTTP format for websites. Berners-Lee is currently the director of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
Ted Stevens famously referred to the internet as "a series of tubes" during a panel on network neutrality. While the statement was technically inaccurate, it is a reasonable depiction of the internet as an interconnected system to a lay person. The internet is formed from two basic elements, routers and connections. A router is basically a small computer that acts like a switching station, similar to the pumping stations of public water utilities. The connections are the pipes themselves, acting as a means to move packets from one router to another, and eventually from server to client.