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- More than one billion people will be on the internet
by the end of next year, says internet guru Nicholas Negroponte.
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- And he says even more "intelligent products"
will be connected to the web.
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- Mr Negroponte, co-founder and director of Media Laboratory
in the world-leading science university, the Massachussets Institute of
Technology (MIT), said: "The forecasters have made some extraordinary
underestimates.
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- "The digital world is moving so fast that before
the end of next year, we will see a billion people on the internet."
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- He went on: "Part of that explosion will happen
in developing countries." And he added that most forecasters underestimated
the likely take-up in developing countries.
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- "Certain countries we do not expect to be digital
will become very digital very fast," Mr Negroponte said. Intelligent
fridges and doorknobs
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- Even more products than people will be connected to the
web.
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- Earlier this year, Electrolux announced an intelligent
fridge, that allows online ordering of food.
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- This is just the thin end of the wedge, Mr Negroponte
says, with smaller products, that are replaced more frequently, such as
toys, likely to lead the way.
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- "How often do you buy a fridge?" he said. "Think
of Barbie dolls. There are likely to be more Barbie dolls connected to
the internet in ten years than Americans," he said.
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- Everyday products such as doorknobs could be embedded
with computers, he predicted.
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- "Clearly if that doorknob could see, listen, speak,
it could do a great deal more than an ordinary doorknob. If it sees me
walking up to the door with my groceries, it can open the door... it might
even be security-conscious and ask me my mother's maiden name," he
said.
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- The speed of change will be determined by the cost of
telecoms, the cost of computers and the technologies to make payments.
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- Founding technologies
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- Mr Negroponte was a founder of MIT's Media Laboratory,
a leader in the field of digital video and multimedia.
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- News of a link-up between Cambridge University in the
UK and MIT has fuelled hopes that the latter's entrepreneurial spirit will
be transplanted across the Atlantic.
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- The two universities will create the Cambridge-MIT institute,
an education and research enterprise that has the financial backing of
the UK Treasury for 80% of its $135m (£84m) budget for the next
five years.
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- The balance of the funding will be raised from British
industry.
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- MIT graduates have founded more than 4,000 firms.
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