**** Columbia Network Research Center Seminar ****

Title:    The Internet and lessons from history
Speaker:  Andrew Odlyzko
          AT&T Labs - Research
When:     Tuesday, March 6, 2001, 10 am
Where:    Interschool Lab, CEPSR Building, 7th floor
          Columbia University
          Refreshments will be served

Abstract:

While the record of technology forecasting is generally dismal, there
are exceptions.  For example, reliance on Moore's Law in its many forms
has been extremely successful.  There are also repeating patterns in the
history of communications.  Combined with Moore's Law, they predict that
some current efforts are misdirected, and numerous opportunities are
neglected.  As example of the predictions that history suggests, it is
connectivity and not content that will matter the most on the Internet. 
Voice and not data is likely to be the main application of 3G wireless. 
Streaming media will not dominate the Internet.  The potential of the
rapidly improving magnetic storage technologies is not being fully
exploited.

Bio: 

Andrew Odlyzko is Head of the Mathematics and Cryptography Research
Department at AT&T Labs.  He has done extensive research in technical
areas such as computational complexity, cryptography, number theory,
combinatorics, coding theory, analysis, and probability theory.  He has
managed projects in security, formal verification methods, parallel and
distributed computation, and auction technology.  In recent years he has
also been working on electronic publishing, electronic commerce, and
economics of data networks.  His home page is
<http://www.research.att.com/~amo>.