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Report on Selected Technologies

March 1998

Hi-tech in Education

Courses offered on-line need to look and be good according to

researchers at the University of British Columbia. Institutions

embarking on distance education via the Internet need to consider

seriously how their study material and interaction "looks and feels"

to students who may never get to see the institution's campus.

Researchers say that even though the product may be what you need, you

may still decide to go for another product because of the packaging.

Universities planning for the future will increasingly expect students

to have their own computers and, if possible, notebooks. At some

universities students may bring their own machines provided they meet

the university's specifications or buy one through the student store

on campus at a low interest loan.

Institutions interested in making their material available via the

Internet, but still concerned about copyright may want to consider the

attaches an alpha numeric tag to each piece of work that allows

content owners to register their copyright privileges. Once further

developed, the system will be able to be used to restrict access to

copyright that works, although now it is designed to honour the

content provider.

Within a few years US universities will be able to depend on the

Digital Library 2 which is an extension of the first digital library

project started in 1994. Funding added to the approximately $25

million is in the order of $50 million. Because the project will

extend over a number of years, it has been said that the proposals

under development must sound "grand and flaky" so that they do not

become obsolete within the five year period of the new grant.

While support for these institutions in the United States is

improving, Internet II continues to receive support for its

development. Bay Networks has granted over a half-million dollars in

equipment and services to help connect more higher education

institutions to the Internet in the United States and Canada. If you

would like more information on Internet II take a look at their

Hi-tech in Work

More and more, the boundary between work and home has merged.

Communications technology along with flexible schedules and increasing

concerns about child care are causing more people to work from home

in order to cope with their multiple roles. The term "juggling" has

been used, particularly in the case of women who must balance

pressures of work and homelife.

Since the term "juggling" tends to conjure up visions of circus acts,

the term "integration" is beginning to be used more often for drawing

the worlds of work and home into a more closely- knit picture. With a

different attitude to blending work and homelife hopefully people in

this situation can become a more content and productive workforce.

While the US Governors Associations are debating whether or not to tax

electronic commerce on the Internet, President Clinton is against it

believing that it should be a tax-free zone to encourage the

establishment of new businesses. Some third-world countries such as

Egypt, India and Pakistan are protesting against this concept saying

that it would reinforce the dominance of the North American and

European countries in the on-line world. One wonders why developing

nations do not take more advantage of the Internet to sell their wares

in those first-world countries.

If you think your typing is fast, try comparing it to the new speed of

173 w.p.m! New software called "Open Write 32" was recently used to

set the new record. It works by translating the shorthand symbols

used by Steno writers and then transferring them into a programme

running on a PC. All errors and omissions were deducted from the word

count achieved by the students who undertook the test and were

witnessed by two independent observers.

Hi-tech Lifestyle

The longstanding perception of the nerd culture has been challenged by

the editor of Wired Magazine in which he describes a new form of nerd

culture, quite different from the existing cultures of science and

art. He describes the new nerd culture's goal as novelty. He feels

"this technologically-driven orientation has important, profound

consequences for both science and

One can expect to see Walt Disney and NBC offering video and

multi-casting entertainment via the Internet within the next few

months. There are already more than 1 100 radio stations broadcasting

24 hours per day over the Internet. The main draw card at this stage

for broadcasting over the Internet is that it can reach people that

cannot be reached through traditional broadcast technologies. A radio

station for Africa for example cannot reach people in the United

States unless it uses a medium such as the Internet. Similarly,

people living in third-world countries are more able to keep

up-to-date with specific areas of interest happening in first-world

countries.

Reports in the United States show that probably 45% of US homes now

have a personal computer and of course these are concentrated in the

higher income brackets. The lower income brackets in the United

States and developing countries may have one thing in common. Access

to PCs and the Internet in the future for these groups is likely to be

through shared facilities such as Community Teli-Info Centres,

Libraries and Public Terminals.

While people may not own computers and have Internet access in their

homes, large numbers of people will gain access to the Internet in the

next few years which will dramatically change characteristics and

market sizes of many industries.

Some areas that have not had even a post office accessible to them now

are receiving both the post office and Internet facility at the same

time, allowing them to leap-frog and be competitive with people in

much higher income brackets. This is likely to impact significantly

on areas such as education and electronic commerce.

Streamlining the Internet

Demand for bandwidth (Internet communication speed) continues to

increase exponentially. At the same time, Internet Service Providers

are trying to keep prices down because of the strong competition in

the market. There are estimates that demand for bandwidth is

increasing by tenfold each year at present which presents challenges

of scaling that have not been seen in the information systems industry

before.

While ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are tackling this problem by

increasing their connections between service providers called Peering.

Lucent Technology is going ahead with a network of fibre optic cables

across the United States that will be able to transfer the equivalent

of 90 000 sets of encyclopedias per second. The technology called

dense wavelength division multiplexes apparently acts like a prism and

increases the amount of data that can be carried in each fibre optic

cable. It also does not require being translated back into electrical

signals when it passes through switches. The company believes this

technology will take off really fast.

Feedback

If you have a comment, request or suggestion on this report, please

e-mail it to Paul West at: pgwest@ibm.net

Regards

Paul West

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