Now, send an e-mail to your heart

Now, send an e-mail to your heart
PRATIK KANJILAL

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 8: Back in 1973, the blueprint of the Internet was drafted on a restaurant table. On the back of the proverbial envelope. Vinton G Cerf designed a communications network which would survive nuclear holocaust. His TCP/IP protocol is what allows all computer systems, from anywhere in the world, to converge in cyberspace.

A quarter of a century on, Cerf, now senior vice-president in charge of advanced Internet systems development at MCI WorldCom, is redefining the very meaning of convergence. The buzzword has come to imply the meeting of data, voice and broadcast and interactive media in cyberspace. But Cerf has a different order of magnitude in mind. He is looking at a world where not only are all machines and data systems connected, but the human organism is also wired to the global network.