* To use voice when entering messages, rather than entering them through the keyboard. The ability to mix speech, text, sound and pictures (single frames or live pictures).
* Messages are delivered to you by voice, as text or as a combination of these (like in a lecture with visual aids).
* Text and voice can be converted to a basic text, which then may be converted to other languages, and forwarded to its destination as text or voice.
One world ————- Within the Internet, the idea of "the network as one, large computer" has already given birth to many special services, like gopher and WAIS. Potentially, we will be able to find and retrieve information from anywhere on the global grid of connected systems. Bulletin boards have commenced to offer grassroots features modeled after telnet and ftp. These alternatives may even end up being better and more productive than the interactive commands offered "inside" the Internet. The global integration of online services will continue at full speed, and in different ways.
Rates ——- There is a trend away from charging by the minute or hour. Many services convert to subscription prices, a fixed price by the month, quarter or year. Other services, among them some major database services, move toward a scheme where users only pay for what they get (no cure, no pay). MCI Mail was one of the first. There, you only pay when you send or read mail. On CompuServe's IQuest, you pay a fixed price for a fixed set of search results.
Cheaper transfers of data ————————————- Privatization of the national telephone monopolies has given us more alternatives. This will continue. Possible scenarios:
* Major companies selling extra capacity from their own
internal networks,
* Telecommunications companies exporting their services at
extra low prices,
* Other pricing schemes (like a fixed amount per month with
unlimited usage),
* New technology (direct transmitting satellites, FM, etc.)