CHAPTER 7 Going Online: The Net, Information Services, and More
Video-on-Demand Becoming a Reality Blockbuster Video, a major tape/DVD video rental company has announced that it will begin offering movies-on-demand later in 2001. Initially the cost to you for a movie on television or on a PC will be more than the rental rates. Cable TV companies are expected to expand their pay-per-view capabilities and offer competition to Blockbuster.
The Internet Continues to Change Education Almost all schools in the United States are linked to the Internet (estimated at over 98 percent). Teachers are finding students who had trouble learning in traditional classroom environments are blossoming in the new learning environments that include technology, primarily the PC and an Internet link. Those teachers who employ the Internet and technology are lecturing less, but they are spending more time working with individual students. According to the U.S. Department of Education, a major problem with integrating technology and classroom is that two-thirds of the teachers remain uncomfortable with computers and the Internet.
The Common Names Resolution Protocol (CNRP) There may be relief in site for URL-phobics. An alternative to what some people believe to be an unnecessarily confusing address system for Internet sites, the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), may be emerging in the form of user-friendly alternative. The Common Names Resolution Protocol (CNRP) developed by a consortium of companies will use short and simple phrases and names. The CNRP alternative will be tested during the next year and, perhaps someday, navigation on Internet may become slightly more intuitive.
E-Commerce and in Developing Countries Interestingly only 6 percent of all Internet users reside in developing countries, which have over 80 percent of the world's population. Although business-to-business (B2B) is evolving between companies in these countries, business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce has a steep hill to climb. In the developed countries, credit cards and electronic payment via credit are commonplace. In undeveloped countries this economic infrastructure does not exist and therefore may slow B2C commerce on a global scale.