Lockheed Martin Technology Seminar - the Future of the Web

Charles Nicholas, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, UMBC

If you like, you can look at this talk from my Web site,http://www.cs.umbc.edu/~nicholas.

Overview

Introduction

  • There's lots of good web-related material at the World-Wide Web Home.
  • The growth of the net in general, and the Web in particular, is extraordinary. So is the growth in public awareness of this topic. Look at some Internet connectivity maps. World map showing net connectivity
  • We can also look at a chart showing the increasing number of Internet hosts worldwide Chart showing growth in sites Internet Growth Essential Links
  • A lot of information is available in books for the general user. More technical material is on the net itself, as RFCs, FYIs, Web pages, etc. Internet drafts are a useful way of learning about new ideas in development. See the Internet Notes Directory at ISI for example.
  • The variety of Internet tools is increasing all the time. Look at December's list of Network Information Retrieval Tools, or a local copy I made earlier.
  • What does this all mean?
    1. Communications infrastructure is on a long-term boom: cable modems, fiber optics, etc.
    2. New job descriptions: Webmeisters, HTML Artists -- and new varieties of hackers!
    3. Our society has changed , and will continue to change in ways that we don't yet understand.

    Browsers

  • Browsers are getting bigger and more powerful all the time. Some view this as a good thing. Browsers are also becoming extensible - in terms of data they can handle, and operations they can perform on that data.
  • The Web isn't just for HTML anymore! The set of MIME types seems to be expanding, and the rate of expansion seems to be increasing.
  • Netscape Navigator plug-ins take this notion of extensibility further.

    Executable Content

  • JAVA is relatively easy to learn if you know C (and easier still if you don't know C++ :-)
  • Netscape (among others) has plans to provide kits for building Web applications. The underlying distirbuted object technology (e.g. CORBA) is here or in the works. Take a look at the Java Beans white paper.
  • JAVA security issues remain a hot topic. See, for example, the Java Security page at Princeton. The high points:
    1. JAVA isn't bullet-proof
    2. Denial of service attacks are easy to do
    3. Covert channels exist, so rogue applets can communicate with anybody
    4. In the absence of a formal security policy, it will be difficult to verify the security of any implementation (of JAVA or anything else)

    Search Services

  • Been around forever - at least two years.
  • Centralized search servers are very nice, pretty fast, and inherently limited. Why?
    1. Robots need time to traverse the Net - on the order of weeks
    2. Space concerns at the search site
    3. Comes at a price, in terms of server load; but worth it.
  • The next generation of search tools will use ideas from the

    The Nature of Knowledge Work is Changing

  • Collaboration via the Net is a fact.
  • The Web is changing the way college teaching is done. Take a look at some of UMBC`s courses on the Web

    Agent-Based Computation

  • What's the big deal with agents?
    1. Intelligent agents has become a buzzword.
    2. An agent has properties of autonomy, adaptability, and cooperation.
    3. There's a lot going on in this area. See UMBC's Agents page.

    Conclusions

  • The Web isn't finished yet!
  • The distinction between client and server will continue to blur
  • Search services will get faster, and smarter
  • Agents will play a larger role - but what role? Who knows?
    This page is the responsibility of Charles Nicholas.