Developing its own information infrastructure is vital to Japan for several reasons.

"The entire information infrastructure has to be reconstituted," he told the conference audience of about 350.

The 21st Century has seen huge surges in information infrastructure.

The Web, in short, has the capacity to become a much more intelligent information infrastructure.

"In my judgment," he said, "public broadcasting is the natural platform upon which any new or future national information infrastructure should be built."

By 2000, "the commercial basis for Canada's information infrastructure" was established, and the government ended its role in the project.

He did say that the information infrastructure was important to everyone.

This in itself raises issues of how the information infrastructure can best serve two models at once.

But her work extends far beyond the realm of information infrastructure.

Those are, if you like, the first building blocks for a geographical information infrastructure.