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The New York Times, September 10th, 2029

Sphere to Replace the InfiNet
by Julie Evans

Researchers at the Institute for the Sphere Initiative, located in Silicon Valley, are currently working on a new technology that will forever change the way people access information from the Net. The idea for the Sphere was first conceived five years ago by head UN Scientist Swen Reinhardt, who is now lead researcher on the project. According to the 2028 Census, 95 ¬¬percent of the Earth’s population has access to the InfiNet. The project, known as Connect Earth, is aimed at developing a system that will eventually allow everyone across the world to be connected via the Sphere.

“Ever since the evolution of the Internet into what we now call the InfiNet, researchers have been working on inventing a method that lets people remain continually connected, not only to the InfiNet, but also to each other. It is this method and the resulting connectivity of people across the world that was the inspiration for the name Sphere,” shared Reinhardt during an interview conducted at the Institute for the Sphere Initiative.

Reinhardt continued, “Because of the changes that have taken place over the past five years, we think it is only fair to make sure that these scientific advancements will be available to everyone. We’ve come a long way since the inception of the Internet, and I can only imagine where we’ll be in another 20 years.”

The major change to which Reinhardt is referring is the UN decree that required all nations to link their government and educational databases into a global pool of information, in an effort to work toward a global peace treaty.

Access to the Sphere will be unlike any previous kinds of access to the InfiNet. This new technology will let people with special devices implanted into their brain stem connect seamlessly to the Sphere.

Hirasi Hayato, head neuroscientist on the project, explains how these special devices, or NetPlugs, serve as biological Wi-Fi signals. “By connecting your NetPlug, or NeckPlugs as we call them around here, to a Sphere ready device, you will be able to access information by simply using your brain. The inspiration from this idea comes from a technique in Neuroscience where patients who can no longer communicate normally are able to use their mind, via electrical impulses sent through electrodes, to speak by controlling a computer through thought.”

The technology, which is still in its initial stages, has proven successful thus far.