We live in the age of technology. Mass communication, mass production, and mass marketing have a common place in today's society and along with these things comes an extensive flow of information. Granted this is not just an overnight phenomena, this super mass of information has grown mostly since the industrial revolution. With the globalization of the economy there needed to be a solution to this problem, the problem of stockpiling information and being able to send it quickly and efficiently from business to business. The answer was the internet. Today the internet serves not only as a gateway for business transactions, but a gateway to the entire world. It has evolved into a global marketplace where people come to talk, share information and play. The internet pulses with the heartbeat of the world. It's a 24 hour bazaar that can be accessed through our fingertips and we are just now experiencing the power that the internet possesses.
             It can be argued when the internet was created, but what is more important is when it was first introduced to the public. On December 9, 1986 Doug Engelbart and his group of researchers presented a 90 minute demonstration of the online system NLS(1968Demo.html). This rudimentary program introduced things like file organization, linking, and hypertext over a network between two people with audio and video interface. If we look back on this demonstration today it looks unsophisticated and elementary, but it has served as the blueprint for all the interfaces that preceded it. The true distinction between Englebart's NLS system and today's more modern internet is the Graphic User Interface (GUI). The creation of GUI helped to popularize the internet and make it more accessible to say, "the average joe". The problem with Engelbart's interface was that it was intimidating and uninviting, it's not very fun trying to interact with lines of code and text all day. The GUI acts as a "middle man" connecting ...