Because of the nature of this research paper, of the medium discussed and the technologies involved, most of the background reading and data collection for this work has been sourced from documents freely available on the Internet . Searching the Internet for research material allows a researcher's information to be as current as possible, avoiding the delay incurred between the development of new technology and the release of books or studies on the subject. In fact, the Internet is probably the best medium for finding sources on new technology since print media still seems to be falling behind.

Much of the research for this paper is derived from corporate, historical and technical information provided to customers from company web-sites . This facilitates the research process in that details can be found directly from the companies creating the technology or selling the service, rather than from books or periodicals, or other third parties. Many of the companies discussed in this paper also offer an archive of press releases, allowing a researcher to work from the same source as the journalists who wrote some of the articles quoted herein.

Vast improvements in graphic interface technology have facilitated the transition of the print media onto the Internet . Articles, news stories, reviews and practical advice columns from numerous magazines and trade journals are now commonly available on the Internet, as well as market research reports, statistics and conference papers, all of which comment on the cutting edge of technological development. The wealth of research materials available is therefore far superior to that found in any single library, despite the obvious problems that arise from the medium - selecting relevant material from an often endless stream of sources, inaccurate or poorly researched documents which can be misleading, and differentiating official sources of statistics and information from unauthorised sources.

Search engines have become an essential part of the online experience, allow often complex keyword searches of documents from all corners of the Internet, and are important to researchers in that they provide a list of documents matched to the keywords, many of which are rated out of 100% for relevance to the search criteria. Many of the news services and online magazines used during the research stage offer a search facility limited to their own archives, which is useful when seeking news stories regarding a specific product or event.

One current disadvantage of the Internet is the nature of its scripting language, HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language). Once a document has been written and published to the Internet, the addresses of links to other sites may change or be deleted, leaving the document with a series of dead links, which is often frustrating for both the researcher and the reader. Future advances in Internet technology will eradicate this problem, but at this moment in time, much of the research that has appeared on the Internet has moved or become untraceable. The online documentation referred to in the bibliography section of this paper are correct at the time of publishing, though may have changed by the time of reading.

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