Newsletter sign-up

View all newsletters

Sign up for our technology specific newsletters.

Enterprise Java

Email Address:

Ultranet, the next network

A bleeding-edge federation of startup companies strives to reinvent the next-generation network

By Miko Matsumura, JavaWorld.com, 11/01/97

Page 3 of 3

So now that XML has created an object Web, what does this innovation do to the fundamental structure of the Internet? This is where Object databases enter into the scene. With a world of objects and interfaces (IDL), there comes a need for a dynamically populated repository. This, of course, is differentiated from storing HTML in a simple flat file system, and much more powerful. With objects, the information that is stored and delivered is not just data, but executable code. I'll get into why this is interesting in a moment. But first, I'd like to mention a class of objects that suddenly appears once you have a repository of XML data objects. What tends to appear are "people objects"; this is part of a trend that is already anticipated by the OPS systems, a universal system for carrying user profile information.

Don't you get tired of typing all of your personal information into every single Web site you visit? With the appearance of people objects in these object repositories, we have a way of representing not just data assets but people as well. Do you recall I mentioned that these people objects have executable code in them? Well, what this suggests is that if they have network mobility code, they are "agents," and if they have a user interface, they are "avatars." Now that we have a population of people objects and asset objects, it's key to have some way to assess who is interested in what, so we can allow collaborative filtering to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the Internet. One company that is showing a lot of leadership in these areas is Affinicast, a small startup based in the South of Market Street area in San Francisco. Another beautiful thing about all of these objects is that you can aggregate all sorts of data around the objects--data that can be publicly addressed and manipulated.

The notion that some of these objects are devices, some of these objects are data assets, and some of these objects are people opens the possibility that new classes of applications and services can become available. But the driving force of the services economy will be the advent of electronic commerce technologies such as the Java Card, Secure Electronic Transaction (SET), and the Java Electronic Commerce Framework (JECF). The security involved enables an authenticated secure channel to be opened between any arbitrary number of points on the Internet. This means that "virtual intranets" will spring up and dissipate at a rate that makes Silicon Valley corporate mergers seem glacial. Securely delivering economic value (money) to anyone who delivers value through the network will be the driving force that transforms the collection of Inter, intra, and extra nets into the ultranet.

This form of economic freedom can be paralleled only in the lush tropical jungles of the Brazilian Amazon. This ecosystem is the most fecund biosystem in the world. The biodiversity of this ecosystem is reflected in hues, chirps, ululations, and the dense tapestry of light, sound, and smell. And who is king of this jungle? If you said "lion," give yourself a B for understanding the popular myths of our culture. Just to give you a sense of what kinds of companies might win in a "jungle economy," take note that the lowly rainforest ant has four times the biomass of all of the mammals combined. Watch for self-organizing communities of netizens to prevail in this space.

About the author

Miko Matsumura has a Masters degree in Neuroscience from Yale University and a BS in Psychology from the University of Michigan. Before becoming the Java Evangelist for Sun Microsystems, he worked at HotWired as the director of Research and Development, at the WELL for Woodstock '94, and at the Branson School. He can now be found at Miko.com. Miko's first computer was an Atari 400 with 16 kilobytes of RAM and a cassette tape recorder, which he got at the age of 12. He has been pondering questions about human and machine behavior ever since. He holds a first-degree black belt in Shotokan karate.

 

Improve efficiency with Visual Studio(r) 2010 Beta 2. - Microsoft

About Us | Advertise | Contact Us | Terms of Service/Privacy

Copyright, 2006-2008 Network World, Inc. All rights reserved.