Internet_s 30th Birthday Celebrated.

30 years after the first primitive Internet connection, the scientists who pioneered the technology and the entrepreneurs profiting from it tried to predict what_s next for the global computer network. "The Internet will become transparent to us," said Len Kleinrock, a University of California, Los Angeles computer science professor. "It will be everywhere, always available and not in our face -- just like electricity." Kleinrock spoke Thursday at a conference marking the anniversary of the first Internet connection, which took place in his lab Sept. 2, 1969. Then, few people cared when bits of data first flowed between two bulky machines linked by a 15-foot cable. The network has since expanded into a force that is changing the way people work, learn, play and shop. New technologies are emerging that could allow fast access over the airwaves, and not just through computers. "Most people don_t want to be connected to their desktops," said Robert Kahn, president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives and a computer language creator. "They want to be able to move around and have access to all that information." Several executives agreed, suggesting the Internet should become a force that works behind the scenes to carry information to people. But future advances will likely remain based on the same technology that was first tested in Kleinrock_s lab in 1969. The project grew from the needs of the Defense Department_s Advance Research Projects Agency, which was formed after the Soviet Union_s 1957 launch of Sputnik, the first manmade satellite to orbit the Earth.