Air

Have you ever wondered where the Internet will go from here? The Net has evolved in so many unexpected ways over the past ten years that it is hard to predict what it'll be like even five years down the line.

Well, one person dared to, and what a prediction it was. Geoff Ryman provided a breathtaking vision of what will happen to the Net in the year 2019 in his sci-fi novel Air.

I happened to read the book while travelling with my parents in the rural parts of China recently, and what I saw there provided a striking parallel to the rural village described in the book.

In the year 2019, the Net has become Air - all pervasive, all encompassing. It has become part of each individual, man and the Net together as one.

The main story of how Air came to affect one of the last places on earth to receive it provides a touching and moving context to all of us of what the Net really means to each ordinary person in this world. Sometimes we tend to forget that for more than two thirds of the world's population, the Net means nothing to them.