E-books and e-publishing by Samuel Vaknin (summer reading list txt) 📖

have fully grasped its potential (in the Berlin 1936

Olympics). And Bill Gates thought that the internet has a very

limited future as late as 1995!!!

Still, this medium has a few characteristics which

differentiate it from all its predecessors. Were these traits

to be continuously and creatively exploited - a few statements

can be made about the future of the Net with relative

assurance.

Time and Space Independence

This is the first medium in history which does not require the

simultaneous presence of people in space-time in order to

facilitate the transfer of information. Television requires

the existence of studio technicians, narrators and others in

the transmitting side - and the availability of a viewer in

the receiving side. The phone is dependent on the existence of

two or more parties simultaneously.

With time, tools to bridge the time gap between transmitter

and receiver were developed. The answering machine and the

video cassette recorder both accumulate information sent by a

transmitter - and release it to a receiver in a different

space and time. But they are discrete, their storage volume is

limited and they do not allow for interaction with the

transmitter.

The Internet does not have these handicaps.

It facilitates the formation of “virtual organizations /

institutions / businesses/ communities”. These are groups of

users that communicate in different points in space and time,

united by a common goal or interest.

A few examples:

The Virtual Advertising Agency

A budget executive from the USA will manage the account of a

hi-tech firm based in Sydney. He will work with technical

experts from Israel and with a French graphics office. They

will all file their work (through the intranet) in the Net, to

be studied by the other members of this virtual group. These

will enter the right site after clearing a firewall security

software. They will all be engaged in flexiwork (flexible

working times) and work from their homes or offices, as they

please. Obviously, they will all abide by a general schedule.

They will exchange audio files (the jingle, for instance),

graphics, video, colour photographs and text. They will

comment on each other’s work and make suggestions using email. The client will witness the whole creative process and

will be able to contribute to it. There is no technological

obstacle preventing the participation of the client’s clients,

as well.

Virtual Rock’n’Roll

It is difficult to imagine that “virtual performances will

replace real life ones.

The mass rock concert has its own inimitable sounds, palette

and smells. But a virtual production of a record is on the

cards and it is tens of percents cheaper than a normal

production. Again, the participants will interact through the

Intranet. They will swap notes, play their own instruments,

make comments by e-mail, play together using an appropriate

software. If one of them is grabbed by inspiration in the

middle of (his) night, he will be able to preserve and pass on

his ideas through the Net. The creative process will be aided

by novel applications which enable the simultaneous transfer

of sound over the Net. The processes which are already

digitized (the mix, for one) will pose no problem to a

digitized medium. Other applications will let the users listen

to the final versions and even ask the public for his preview

opinion.

Thus, even creative processes which are perceived as demanding

human presence - will no longer do so with the advent of the

Net.

Perhaps it is easier to understand a Virtual Law Firm or

Virtual Accountants Office.

In the extreme, such a firm will not have physical offices, at

all. The only address will be an e-mail address. Dozens of

lawyers from all over the world with hundreds of specialities

will be partners in such an office. Such an office will be

truly multinational and multidisciplinary. It will be fast and

effective because its members will electronically swap

information (precedents, decrees, laws, opinions, research and

plain ideas or professional experience).

 

It will be able to service clients in every corner of the

globe. It will involve the transfer of audio files

(NetPhones), text, graphics and video (crucial in certain

types of litigation). Today, such information is sent by post

and messenger services. Whenever different types of

information are to be analysed - a physical meeting is a must.

Otherwise, each type of information has to be transferred

separately, using unique equipment for each one.

Simultaneity and interactivity - this will be the name of the

game in the Internet. The professional term is “Coopetition”

(cooperation between potential competitors, using the

Internet).

Other possibilities: a virtual production of a movie, a

virtual research and development team, a virtual sales force.

The harbingers of the virtual university, the virtual

classroom and the virtual (or distance) medical centre are

here.

The Internet - Mother of all Media

The Internet is the technological solution to the mythological

“home entertainment centre” debate.

It is almost universally agreed that, in the future, a typical

home will have one apparatus which will give it access to all

types of information. Even the most daring did not talk about

simultaneous access to all the types of information or about

full interactivity.

The Internet will offer exactly this: access to every

conceivable type of information simultaneously , the ability

to process them at the same time and full interactivity. The

future image of this home centre is fairly clear - it is the

timing that is not. It is all dependent on the availability of

a wide (information) band - through which it will be possible

to transfer big amounts of data at high speeds, using the same

communications line. Fast modems were coupled with optic

fibres and with faulty planning and vision of future needs.

The cable television industry, for instance, is totally

technologically unprepared for the age of interactivity. This

is only partly the result of unwise, restrictive, legislation

which prohibits data vendors from stepping on each others’

toes. Phone companies were not permitted to provide Internet

services or to transfer video through their wires - and cable

companies were not allowed to transmit phone calls.

It is a question of time until these fossilized remains are

removed by the almighty hand of the market. When this happens,

the home centre is likely to look like this:

A central computer attached to a big screen divided to

windows. Television is broadcast on one window. A software

application is running on another. This could be an

application connected to the television program (deriving data

from it, recording it, collating it with pertinent data it

picks out of databases). It could be an independent

application (a computer game).

Updates from the New York Stock exchange flash at the corner

of the screen and an icon blinks to signal the occurrence of a

significant economic event.

A click of the mouse (?) and the news flash is converted to a

voice message. Another click and your broker is on the

InternetPhone (possibly seen in a third window on the screen).

You talk, you send him a fax containing instructions and you

compare notes. The fax was printed on a word processing

application which opened up in yet another window.

Many believe that communication with the future generation of

computers will be voice communication. This is difficult to

believe. It is weird to talk to a machine (especially in the

presence of other humans). We are seriously inhibited this

way. Moreover, voice will interrupt other people’s work or

pleasure. It is also close to impossible to develop an

efficient voice recognition software. Not to mention mishaps

such as accidental activation.

The Friendly Internet

The Internet will not escape the processes experienced by all

other media.

It will become easy to operate, user-friendly, in professional

parlance.

It requires too much specialized information. It is not

accessible to those who lack basic hardware and (Windows)

software concepts.

Alas, most of the population falls into the latter category.

Only 30 million “Windows” operating systems were sold

worldwide at the end of 1996. Even if this constitutes 20% of

all the copies (the rest being pirated versions) - it still

represents less than 3% of the population of the world. And

this, needless to say, is the world’s most popular software

(following the DOS operating system).

The Internet must rely on something completely different. It

must have sophisticated, transparent-to-the-user search

engines to guide to the cavernous chaotic libraries which will

typify it. The search engines must include complex decision

making algorithms. They must understand common languages and

respond in mundane speech. They will be efficient and

incredibly fast because they will form their own search

strategy (supplanting the user’s faulty use of syntax).

These engines, replete with smart agents will refer the user

to additional data, to cultural products which reflect the

user’s history of preferences (or pronounced preferences

expressed in answers to feedback questionnaires). All the

decisions and activities of the user will be stored in the

memory of his search engine and assist it in designing its

decision making trees. The engine will become an electronic

friend, advise the user, even on professional matters.

 

Cease-Fire

The cessation of hostilities between the Internet and some

off-the-shelf software applications heralds the commencement

of the integration between the desktop computer and the Net.

This is a small step for the user - and a big one for

humanity. The animosity which prevailed until recently between

the UNIX systems and the HTML language and between most of the

standard applications (headed by the Word Processors) - has

officially ended with the introduction of Office 97 which

incorporates full HTML capabilities. With the Office 2000

products, the distinctions between a web computing environment

and a PC computing one - have all but vanished. Browsers can

replace operating systems, word processors can browse,

download and upload - the PC has finally been entirely

absorbed by its offspring, the internet.

The Portable Document Format (PDF) enables the user to work

the Internet offline. In other words: text files will be

loaded to word processors and edited offline. The same

applies to other types of files (audio, video).

Downloading time will be speeded up (today, it takes so long

to download an audio or video file that, many times, it is

impracticable).

This is not a trivial matter. The ability to switch between

on-line and offline states and to continue the work,

uninterrupted - this ability means the integration of the PC

in the Internet.

There are two competing views concerning the future of

computer hardware and both of them acknowledge the importance

of the Internet.

Bill Gates - Microsoft’s legendary boss - says that the PC

will continue to advance and strengthen its processing and

computing powers. The Internet will be just another tool

available through telecommunications, rather than through the

ownership of hard copies of software and data. The Internet is

perceived to be a tremendous external database, available for

processing by tomorrow’s desktops. This view is lately being

gradually reversed in view of the incredible vitality and

powers of the Internet.

Gates is converging on the worldview held by Sun Microsystems.

The future desktop will be a terminal, albeit powerful and

with considerable processing, computing and communications

capabilities. The name of the game will be the Internet

itself. The terminal will access Internet databases

(containing raw or processed data) and satisfy its information

needs.

This terminal - equipped with languages the likes of Java -

will get into libraries of software applications. It will make

use of components of different applications as the needs

arise. When finished using the component, the terminal will

“return” it to the virtual “shelf” until the next time it is

needed.

This will minimize memory resources in the desktop.

The truth, as always, is probably somewhere in the middle.

Tomorrow’s computer will be a home entertainment centre. No

consumer will accept total dependence on telecommunications

and on the Net. They will all ask for processing and computing

powers