internet

(noun)

The global system of interconnected computer networks that link billions of devices worldwide; a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. 

Related Terms

Examples of internet in the following topics:

  • The Information Age

    • While the roots of innovations like personal computers and the Internet go back to the 1960s and massive Department of Defense spending, it was in the 1980s and 90s that these technologies became part of everyday life.
    • The Internet was first conceived as a fail-proof network that could connect computers together and be resistant to any one point of failure; the Internet cannot be totally destroyed in one event, and if large areas are disabled, the information is easily rerouted.
    • Though the Internet itself has existed since 1969, it was with the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989 by two computer scientists, Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau, followed by its implementation in 1991, that the Internet truly became a global network.
    • Today, the Internet has become the ultimate platform for accelerating the flow of information.
    • In the 1990s, the spread of the Internet caused a sudden leap in access to and ability to share information in businesses, at home, and around the globe.

  • Globalization and the U.S.

    • Advances in transportation (such as the steam locomotive, steamship, jet engine, and container ships) and in telecommunications infrastructure (including the rise of the telegraph and its modern offspring, the Internet, and mobile phones) have been major factors in globalization, generating further interdependence of economic and cultural activities in nations around the world.
    • The direction of cultural flows has often been one-sided, and worldwide export of Western culture to non-Western nations has proliferated through new forms of mass media: film, radio, television, recorded music, and most recently the internet.
    • This process is marked by the common consumption of cultures that have been diffused by the Internet, popular culture media, and international travel.

  • Debates over Globalization

    • Advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, including the rise of the Internet, are major factors in globalization, generating further interdependence of economic and cultural activities.
    • Mobile phones and cellular networks, in addition to the Internet, allow people to communicate and connect across nations and borders.

  • Modern Republicanism

    • His enduring innovations include his launching of the Interstate Highway System, DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which lead to the internet among other things), NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, driving peaceful discovery in space), the establishment of strong science education via the National Defense Education Act, and the encouragement of peaceful nuclear power use via amendments to the Atomic Energy Act.

  • The "New Economy" of the 1990s

    • According to another point of view, the "new economy" is a current Kondratiev wave which will end after a 50-year period in the 2040s; its innovative basis includes the Internet, nanotechnologies, telematics, and bionics.

  • Conclusion: The End of a Century

    • Much of the prosperity of the 1990s was related to technological change and the advent of new information systems, most notably the rise of the personal computer and the Internet.

  • The Internationalization of the United States

    • Through the process of globalization, American culture has expanded around the globe by spreading pop culture, particularly via the Internet and satellite television.