The year 1993 was a watershed for the internet. It was the year developers of the web at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (French acronym CERN) made it open and free to everyone.

It's also the year that Mosaic, the first general-use internet browser, was released.

Twenty-five years later, the internet has become one of the most important tools in our lives, so much so that it feels strange to call it a "thing." Our digital lives allow us to communicate and connect like never before, but it has also opened up a Pandora's box of complicated ethical issues.

What better place to muse on how technology has changed our lives than the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California?

KQED's Silicon Valley tech team -- senior editor Tonya Mosley and reporters Peter Jon Shuler and Sam Harnett -- visited the museum for this week's show to take us back in time.

Virtual Worlds: Reassessing Our Tech Predictions 25 Years Later

In one of AT&T's "You Will" commercials from 1993, a man remotely attends a business meeting via his laptop at the beach -- something barely imaginable at the time. (YouTube)

Along with colleague Rachael Myrow, the team investigated how our first experiences of this "futuristic" technology from a quarter-century ago have evolved to present day. That series, Virtual Worlds, revisits KQED's reporting from 1993.

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The first story in the series re-examines 25-year-old tech predictions about the dangers of feeling tied to technology, and futuristic ads showing people buying concert tickets from an ATM machine, making video calls from a pay phone and sending their beach messages through a fax.

The Internet Really Did Lead to an Explosion of Creative Content: Good, Bad and Ugly

A Halo Called Fred enjoys the first coverage it's received on KQED since 1993. Brushwood Thicket Farmer (left); Geverend Dee (top center); Queenie (right); Tiny (bottom center). (Courtesy of Scott Levine/FotoPlex)

Back in 1993, there were new ideas about how the internet could let you pay for content you like (and get paid for making your own content!).

We revisit just how that has played out 25 years later.

Innovation in East Oakland: The Realities of Keeping Up Outside of Silicon Valley's Bubble

Students in the Media Academy at Fremont High School in East Oakland work on a solution for a community problem using virtual reality. (Tonya Mosley/KQED)

Twenty-five years ago, students at Fremont High School in East Oakland were learning all about how to use the latest technologies.

But even back then, teachers were questioning whether they were creating passive consumers or active creators of tech. We revisit East Oakland to let see if anything has changed.

Online Privacy ... a Thing of the Past?

The Altair 8800 was released in 1975 as the first personal computer. (Bianca Taylor/KQED)

As part of this week's special, guest host Tonya Mosley also walks through the museum with technology journalist and internet safety advocate Larry Magid, to talk about our evolving standards for privacy and security online.

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