2020 Web Vision: How the Internet Will Revolutionize Future Homes, Business & Society

by Robert D. Oberst

At the dawn of a new millennium, faith in technology soared following the successful eradication of the potentially paralyzing Y2K bug. Young dot-coms with little experience and possessing few assets other than a concept, flourished boasting market values in the millions and even billions of dollars. Then reality settled in as the market crashed and over a hundred dot-coms perished. The highflying NASDAQ dropped over 60% and the longest economic expansion teetered on the brink of recession. Despite the disconcerting scenario, this was not the demise of the Web, but merely the conclusion of its innocent childhood or the first stage of meteoric growth. After all, the Web was only 10 years old. There were still trillions of dollars worth of opportunities, as the more rigorous applications waited to be accomplished. The Web is a revolutionary event, yet there is no evident vision of its future. This book projects the Web until the year 2020 and will interest anyone intrigued by the Web, but perplexed by its seemingly erratic course. The book clarifies the murky Web, showing how it will interconnect emerging digital technologies to revolutionize our home, work, and society. In short, 2020 Web Vision will relieve the future shock engendered by the Web. It will also be helpful to those interested in building new applications or investing in future technological enterprises.

Paperback

First published July 1, 2001

About the author

The "Time Traveler Series" is Rob’s first venture in historical fiction. As a management consultant, he wrote innumerable pieces for S&P 500 organizations to enable them to harness the latest revolutionary technologies. Progressively honing his craft led Rob to try his hand at writing fiction. Similar to his other books, his latest novels in the “Time Traveler Series” are packed with fascinating history and action-packed stories that translate to modern times, such as the parallels between the current digital revolution and the 15th-century’s printing revolution that, through the rapid spread of knowledge, transformed the world, which inspired the Renaissance, the Reconquista of Spain by Isabella, the subsequent discovery of America by Columbus, and the Protestant Reformation with Henry the VIIIth.

Over twenty years observing how digital technologies evolved, curious about how these would continue to effect our lives over the next twenty years, he wrote first book 2020 Web Vision , which remarkably predicted how these would enhance our homes, businesses and society, especially during the pandemic that presciently struck in 2020. Fortunately, the virtual technologies foreshadowed in the book enabled us to continue to work, learn, shop, eat, and socialize safely, thereby saving thousands of lives. 2020 Web Vision appeared in over a dozen countries on five continents, in universities such as Harvard, and at research facilities.

In the early two-thousands, concerned about our economy, Rob developed a model that predicted a serious recession in 2008. After the Great Recession, he looked for an overarching cause and found that similar crashes had occurred for over the last 150 years, back to the Civil War, encompassing the Great Depression too. The extensive model showed that these long-term downturns occurred whenever a large generation such as the greatest generation or the war boom baby generation retires, and withdraws their overwhelming financial force from the nation’s economy. The prescient model, contained in The Financial Time Machine predicted slow growth for the U.S. and other major world economies for over a decade.

Following his death, Rob discovered his father’s Olympic diary recalling his extraordinary adventure to Paris for the "Chariots of fire Olympics". Gene also excelled as one of the stars of Notre Dame’s first successful football teams led by legendary coach Knute Rockne, the winningest coach in college history. Intrigued by numerous articles in his scrapbook, Rob delved into the era—the “Golden Age of American Sports”, to write Gene ‘Kentuck’ Oberst. Intrigued by the discovery of fifty letters between Gene and Knute describing how Knute acquired his six coaching positions and made it possible for Gene to marry his wife, Catherine, Rob wrote Renaissance Olympian . It follows Gene throughout his college coaching career as he interacts with the legendary coaches and athletes of the 20th Century including his subsequent time as a popular professor and artist. Website = https://globalfuturepress.com/