CompuServe Messages

Paul— In response to your "can of worms"<<<I am curious what Data Translation, a comparative heavyweight in the DTV area, envisions consumers will do with a Media 100 rig, Patrick. How would this change our lives?>>> Here are some off the cuff thoughts (nothing definitive). Looking into the future…the "Media 100" of the our dreams… We envison a device that lets consumers create electronic stories that can combine moving and still images, sound, narration, animation, and titles. It will be cheap (circa the cost of a consumer color TV) It will be as use as word processing. It will be increasingly digital, as video is sticky and linear—whereas digital communications can be intermutable and interactive. It will be as ubiquitous as France's minitel. Secondary school students will be taught the rudiments of camera work, editing, scriptwriting, and graphics manipulation to augment their 3 R's. Programming will be distributed by next generation equivalents of telephone wiring—ubiquitous, cheap. Software knowledge agents will serve as information refineries to sift through the vast quantities of available material to find programs of interest. Television is the principal form of information and entertainment for a majority of people in the First World. When all of the above is extant, then consumers will more easily be able to send out their own messages, instead of just watching TV. Remember it took 25 years before Gutenberg's press began to have a discernable impact on the literate world of the medieval period. It will still be some time before the later day progeny of today's programming tools begin to really "change the world". It will be, it is, a fun time to be alive. –PR