From 50 million in 1997, the number of people who have logged onto the Internet has exploded to nearly 1.1 billion. Yet, the Internet only reaches a sixth of the world’s population.

According to Cerf India, a country of 1.1 billion people, alone is adding seven million mobile-phone users a month, a powerful enough lure for British telecom giant Vodafone to pay 11.1 billion dollars for a controlling stake in local mobile firm Hutch-Essar this month. Handset manufacturers and mobile-phone companies are offering an array of Internet-enabled features and services including payment and navigation systems while dropping charges under the pressure of growing competition that will bring many of the new subscribers to the Internet.

As the VP of Google he said the company wants to tap the talent of Indian engineers to innovate technologies and widen its range of services. India is estimated to have 40 million people online, a meagre 3.5 percent of its vast population. Google will focus on local languages, culture, content and delivery of new business models to widen the reach of the Internet.

Cerf also mentioned a technology protocol called InterPlaNet (IPN)-short for Inter-planetary Internet - is currently in use to connect links between spacecrafts on Mars to Earth. He said “We are working on standardizing the protocols so that spacecrafts can communicate and share information across the solar system.”

So if i had to sum it all. I guess my kids (20 years hence) would be talking and seeing me (video conferencing) from space (they would be on a vacation!) through a mobile device! And all of this would be free (Im hoping it is atleast the call charges!)

Source - Yahoo News