The Online World resources handbook

Gazing into the future http://home.eunet.no/~presno/bok/17.html
links directly to computers. The transmissions can also be used for portable videophone
and Web TV applications, according to the company.
Satellite program producer Japan Image Communications Co. plans to start satellite
broadcasts for home computers during 1997. Offerings will include economic news and
game software on the Internet, using the JCSAT 3 communications satellite.
Other interesting satellite projects on the horizon include Skybridge (Alcatel
Espace, France), CyberStar (Loral Space & Communications, USA), Lockheed Martin's
Astrolink, AT&T's Voicestar, and Motorola's Celestri and M Star.
The biz.pagesat newsgroup on Usenet is "For discussion of the Pagesat Satellite
Usenet Newsfeed."
Electronic mail on the move
For years, national telephone companies, backed by ITU TSS, Lotus, Novell, Microsoft
and other software companies, pushed the X.400 email standard, while commercial
online services like CompuServe, Dialcom, MCI Mail, GEIS, and Sprint promoted their
own proprietary solutions.
Nobody really cared much about the Internet, until it suddenly was there for
everybody. It has changed the global email scene completely.
In 1992, the president of the Internet Society made the following prediction:
".. by the year 2000 the Internet will consist of some 100 million hosts, 3
million networks, and 1 billion users (close to the current population of the
People's Republic of China). Much of this growth will certainly come from
commercial traffic."
If this comes true, then proprietary email systems (like those built on X.400) will fade
away and even possibly disappear.
Watch the Internet Mail Consortium. Their focus is on "cooperatively managing
and promoting the rapidly expanding world of electronic mail on the Internet." Also,
watch the proliferation of free email for everybody RQ WKH ,QWHUQHW
The commercials go Internet
Daily, new databases and information services appear on the Internet. Most are free.
World Wide Web, hypertext, and distributed text searching systems (like WAIS) make
it easier than ever to find information.
While this puts pressure on the old commercial services, it also creates new
opportunities. Many have already opened shop on the Internet. Others focus on making
it easier for users to connect directly from this global matrix of networks. Eventually, we
may well find everybody there.
Telebase Systems resells Dialog and other professional and business database
information to individual consumers through services like IQuest.
Their offering is a top level subject oriented menu system. Subscribers can use it
interactively at http://www.telebase.com/. Pricing depends on the database being
searched. It offers databases with primarily business information from well known
sources, such as Standard & Poor's, Dun & Bradstreet, TRW Business Credit,
magazines, newspapers, etc.
Dun & Bradstreet is at the Web address http://www.dnb.com/. You will find
Elsevier Science, the scientific communications branch of Reed Elsevier, at
http://www.elsevier.nl/.
Cheaper and better communications
During Christmas 1987, a guru said that once the 9600 bps V.32 modems fell below the
US$1,200 level, they would create a new standard. Today, such modems can be bought
at prices lower than US$100. In several countries, 56 Kbs modems are emerging as the
preferred choice in competition with even faster ISDN and cable modems.
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