Subject: RCFoC for March 9, 1998 - "Bandwidth -- The Silicon of the21st C entury!"
The Rapidly Changing Face of Computingaddress:
March 9, 1998
"Bandwidth -- The Silicon of the 21st Century!"
-----------------------------------------------
by Jeffrey R. Harrow
Senior Consulting Engineer
Corporate Research & Advanced Development,
Digital Equipment Corporation
jeff.harrow@digital.com
Insight, analysis and commentary on contemporary
computing and the technologies that drive it (not
necessarily the views of Digital Equipment Corporation).
Copyright (c)1998, Digital Equipment Corporation
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Your Feedback Is Important!
I'd like to understand your interest in the RCFoC, how you make
use of it, and the value you feel it provides to you, your
career, and to your company.
Please send me your comments to Internet mail
jeff.harrow@digital.com
I look forward to hearing from you!
Jeff Harrow
--------------------------------------------------------------------
In This Issue:
* RCFoC Radio!
* It's All About Bandwidth.
* Bandwidth From the Sky...
* And Bandwidth In The Air -- At Home?
* Storage Breakthrough -- No Smoke, but MEMS Mirrors...
* Chips Ahoy.
* The Newton Is Dead. Long Live the PDA.
* Ecommerce Update.
* Building Bugs In!
* About the "Rapidly Changing Face of Computing."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
RCFoC Radio!
As always, the RCFoC is also available as a "radio" show, utilizing
Web-based audio-on-demand "RealAudio" technology from RealNetworks.
It's easy to set up and use, and works over even slow modems -- give
it a try by clicking on the "Real" icon next to this issue on the
RCFoC home page at http://www.digital.com/rcfoc !
Need help acquiring or setting up the free RealPlayer? Information
is a click away at
http://www.digital.com/rcfoc/audio/rcfoc_radio_help_realaudio.htm .
---------------------------------------------------------------------
It's All About Bandwidth.
The phenomenal storage and performance innovations we seem to find
each week (and this week is no exception) will surely make quite a
difference in our computers over the next few years. But if you take
a moment to think about it, the really dramatic changes to how
average people and businesses are using computers come more from our
computers' relatively new ability to participate in a global
communications network (online services; Internet, intranets,
extranets...) than from their ever-increasing "speeds and feeds."
Indeed, when I attended last week's IDC Directions 98 forum
(http://www.idc.com/dir98/brc1.htm), Gigi Wang, Sr. VP,
Communications Research, eloquently summed it up saying that the key
to the "billion user" online market is bandwidth, "The silicon of
the 21st century!"
IDC finds that 23 percent of US households are currently online and,
by the end of this year, they will utilize 600 million hours per
month of online time. In just four years, IDC expects the number of
Internet users worldwide to grow from a current 97 million to 400
million, consuming 15.5 terabits/second of bandwidth!
But that's a huge number -- will the backbone providers be able to
meet that demand? Wang says "Yes" and then some, both because it's
so comparatively inexpensive to add lots of extra fibers when laying
just one, and because we keep finding new ways to move much more
data down existing fibers (for example, Wavelength Division
Multiplexing --
http://www.digital.com/rcfoc/980209.htm#Burgeoning_Backbone). In
fact, she expects that by 2002 we should actually have a raw data
capacity of 4,500,000 terabits/second! And we'll all appreciate an
offshoot of this massive amount of excess capacity -- a continuous
drop in bandwidth prices.
And this will not yield "business as usual." IDC's Frank Gens, Sr.
VP, Internet Research, suggests that,
"Bandwidth growth will exceed user growth on the Internet,
changing key assumptions."
In the last RCFoC we explored one particular innovation that could,
conceivably, extend this growing bandwidth capacity across that
difficult "last mile" to our offices and homes at 622
megabits/second
(http://www.digital.com/rcfoc/980223.htm#Expanding_Options_for_The).
And I asked you what the results might be if we really did have such
seemingly limitless bandwidth at our disposal.
Many of you responded with interesting ideas, and this week I'd like
to share the thoughts of one reader who works for a traditional
phone company. Some people equate the phone companies' slow adoption
of high speed data with Lilly Tomlin's "Ernestine" the operator's
"We don't care; we don't have to - we're the Phone Company." But as
you'll see, these establishments do have employees who clearly see
the potential (and the threat) of how really high-speed pervasive
Internet connectivity could change the rules in very dramatic ways.
Of course some of these possible changes directly threaten those
phone companies' business-as-usual, so you can appreciate that I'll
honor his or her request for anonymity:
Telephone Switching As A Cottage Industry -- The first
thing that comes to my mind is that this sort of a system
[a pervasive, very high speed data network to end users]
means the end of telephone company central offices. 622
Mbps is roughly the data rate needed to transport 9000
telephone calls. A digital telephone connection is only 56
Kbps. That means that all telephone calls will be
transmitted digitally over this network. It also means
that many computers capable of sending and receiving at
this speed can be programmed to perform all the functions
of a central office switch. One PC costing a few thousand
dollars will be able to replace a central office switch
costing much much more. And telephone switching can become
a cottage industry. Even if we move to video telephones
with megabit bi-directional data streams, telephone
switches are history. There will be routing nodes where
the network branches, but these will be small chunks of
silicon embedded in the network.
The Changing Nature of Software Distribution -- Software
distribution will change dramatically. Using this sort of
a network you can run software stored on a remote server
as easily as you can run it off of your local hard drive.
In fact, with this sort of a network you can actually RUN
software on that remote server's CPU as easily as you can
run it locally. Your local computer will run some things
locally and run other things remotely. It will not matter
to you where the programs actually run. In most cases it
will be cheaper to run things locally. [In fact, the time
for this is "now!" The Feb. 18 Internet Daily describes
how U.S. West already plans to rent Web-based programs
beginning later this year -- "This is actually embedding
the software in the network," according to spokesperson
Jennifer Jones. Additional details are at
http://www.pcworld.com/cgi-bin/database/body.pl?ID=9802201
43211 .]
The Death of Cable -- Other things you can do with
bandwidth like that... You can download video about 10 to
20 times faster than real time. That means that cable TV
is dead. You will download shows when you want to see
them. They will start playing immediately, but they will
finish downloading in a couple of minutes so that you can
have full VCR type controls -- pause, rewind, slow -- for
all shows that you watch, because they will be stored on
your local disk drive while you watch them.
Games -- Video games will be like nothing we've ever seen
before, like nothing we've even begun to imagine. Ultima
Online is pointing the way, maybe. Lambda Moo and the
other collaborative realities are pointing the way as
well.
Virtualized Reality -- Telepresence becomes an interesting
possibility. Scatter video cameras around the world and
use the bandwidth you are describing to bring multiple
video images from a location to your PC. Use enough
computing power and, following the lead of work being done
at the MIT Media Lab right now, you have the possibility
of creating real time 3D views of any location in the
world, viewed from any point of view you choose. Go to
Mardi Gras from the comfort of your home, but see it and
hear it from the point of view of people in the crowd.
Move your point of view as you wish, or even maintain
multiple points of view. Not at all the same as watching
it on TV. And, not virtual reality. But rather
"virtualized reality."
Video Production As A Cottage Industry -- 622 Mbps is
enough that you can do production quality video work at
home and transmit it to a customer at a little below real
time rates with no compression. With loss-less compression
you should be able to hit real time rates. That means that
commercial quality video production and editing will
become a cottage industry. This also means that people
will be able to sell video programming from their homes.
[Note that this has already happened using today's
bandwidth for audio programming, such as RCFoC Radio and
1,100+ online radio stations.] Everyone can be a
television station and a movie distributor. Editors and
critics are going to become very important people.
The Rise of Telecommuting -- It will become very difficult
for companies to justify maintaining large office
complexes. With the quality of interpersonal
communications that will be available, everyone that works
at a keyboard will work from home. Only people who work
with their hands, that have to be physically present to do
a job, will commute. And, with the development of
telerobotic devices, even those people will be able to
work from home. This is not a good thing if you sell cars
or oil.
Of course these are only one person's ideas; you may not agree with
their feasibility or the likelihood that they could actually come to
pass for technical or economic reasons. But just the potential --
just the mere possibility that such things could occur -- should
remind us of the immense impact that the rapidly changing face of
computing might well have on even the bedrock institutions of our
society -- if they don't change with this tide. And IDC's Fran Gens
does believe that, like the tide, the move towards high-speed access
is inexorable:
"By 2002, almost 20% of the roughly 45 million households
will have high-speed access -- and the vast majority of
those will have access speeds of 1-10 megabits per second
or greater."
RCFoC reader Steve Stroh provided another perspective:
"It's gonna be fun to watch [the uses of high speed bandwidth]
evolve. The grandchildren won't be equipped to understand what
life COULD have been like prior to ubiquitous, high bandwidth,
too-cheap-to-meter Internet.
In short, they won't believe you, any more than you and I can
really believe the stories of what it was like before
telephones, television, broadcast radio and planes. My
Grandmother is 100 now, and when she was a small girl, there
weren't airplanes! We went from no powered flight to exploring
our solar system in one lifetime!"
Given that technology now moves at "Net Speed," it certainly won't
take another lifetime for computing and bandwidth advances to cause
similar changes. I suggest that every established business
constantly "watch their six" for a Knowledge Age competitor who,
moving at Net Speed and with nothing to lose, just might change the
world out from under them.
Of course you don't have to keep up on all of these changes. But as
noted futurist Frank Ogden, (Dr. Tomorrow -
http://www.drtomorrow.com) cautions with a quote from Eric Hoffer:
"In times of rapid change learners inherit the earth,
while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to
deal with a world that no longer exists."
Considering that "change" is the only constant today, "learners" we
had best all be...
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Bandwidth From the Sky...
Of course not all bandwidth comes from fibers and wires; the
successful launch of Teledesic's first satellite underscores that
the bandwidth we discussed above may slip past a slow-to-develop
wired infrastructure completely!
Named "T1," this satellite and its Pegasus rocket were carried to
39,000 feet and released by a Lockheed L-1011, where the Pegasus
then finished the job, inserting T1 into a 350-mile high orbit. T1
is just a test bird intended to explore atmospheric drag,
weather-related interference, and synchronization with the Global
Positioning Satellite (GPS) system. But it's the first of a planned
288 Low Earth Orbit Satellites (LEOS) which will provide "Internet
In The Sky" to any place on earth with upload speeds of 2
megabits/second, and download speeds as high as 64 megabits/second!
Of course, Teledesic is only one possibility for high-flying
bandwidth. Motorola's Iridium (http://www.iridium.com) will begin
providing global voice, fax, and low-speed data this year.
And Iridium is already changing the "look and feel" of our sky in a
way you might not have imagined! The March 2 TBTF
(http://www.tbtf.com/archive/03-02-98.html#s07) points out that
Iridium's 51 satellites' antennas are large enough that, when the
sun hits them at the right angle, they produce a visible "flare" in
the sky that can be seen with the naked eye. (See
http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/vsohp/iridium.html for a detailed
explanation.) Now I just have to wonder how long it will be before
an aggressive advertiser sees this phenomenon and works a deal with
one of these large clusters of satellites -- could their orbit and
reflectivity be adjusted to, perhaps, put a glimmering software or
soft drink logo in our night sky? (I'm kidding. Really! But on the
other hand...)
Then there's Motorola's Celestri
(http://www.mot.com/GSS/SSTG/projects/celestri/), a system that will
combine the benefits of both LEOS and GEOS (geostationary)
satellites. And there are other satellite-based systems waiting, er,
in the wings, as well, such as ICO's ICONET -- with thanks to Colin
Hewitt for the pointer, check out an interesting Java-based page
that demonstrates the overlapping satellite coverage you can expect
at your location - http://www.ico.com/about/system/demo/index.htm .
Also, don't count out some "revolutionary" bandwidth delivery
concepts being bandied about. There's Sky Station International's
"Stratospheric Telecommunications Service" which plans to float
blimp-like communications platforms 70,000 feet over major cities
(http://web.skystation.com/), and Angel Technologies has a similar
plan to fly unusual-looking High Altitude Long Operation (HALO)
communications platform planes at 52,000 feet (pictures are at
http://www.angeltechnologies.com/halos/images.html).
To me, these examples demonstrate an overall lesson that bandwidth
is big business, and it's going to be available when and where we
want it. Period.
Now, what does that mean to your business?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Have You Shared Your Thoughts About the RCFoC?
Just a reminder that your feedback, on how you use, and what you
think of the RCFoC, is important! Drop me an Email at
jeff.harrow@digital.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
And Bandwidth In The Air -- At Home?
There's no lack of discussion on ways to wire our homes and small
offices, but now a new consortium called the "Home Radio Frequency
Working Group comprised of Compaq, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola,
Proxim, and others is out to UN-wire things! They're working on the
"Shared Wireless Access Protocol (SWAP) due out before year end that
will set standards for integrated wireless voice and 2
megabits/second data based on a combination of cordless phone and
wireless LAN technologies
(http://www.proxim.com/proxim/pr/hrfwg.htm).
Now this is one I could really get into. I have twisted-pair
Ethernet strung to several rooms in my home, and I'd really like to
extend it to others, but that's the proverbial "non-trivial task."
And even when I do have a data jack in a room, it's invariably on
the wrong wall. It would be really great if there were a common
wireless standard supported by a slew of commodity (read that
inexpensive) devices that would free my PCs, notebooks, and printers
from their physical ties; I'll be looking forward to seeing how SWAP
(http://www.homerf.org/) develops.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Storage Breakthrough -- No Smoke, but MEMS Mirrors...
MEMS, or MicroElectroMechanical Systems -- are essentially
mechanical devices made to a tiny semiconductor element scale. Talk
about them and they bring to mind the futuristic science fiction
concept of a fog of microscopic "constructors" swarming over an area
and creating a building, a car, or whatever, seemingly from thin
air. We're not quite at that point yet, but disk maker Seagate has
announced that applying some of these sci. fi. MEMS concepts could
soon be boosting hard drive capacity by a revolutionary ten times!
Dubbed OAW for Optical Assisted Winchester technology, they
anticipate being able to store 40 gigabits/square inch -- that's
1,440 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica -- in the space of a
postage stamp!
According to Seagate and their wholly owned subsidiary Quinta,
micro-optic lenses focus light carried by a fiber onto MEMS mirrors,
each smaller than a pin head, which are located along the disk arm.
These MEMS mirrors then rotate on command to project the light onto
special optical servo tracks embedded in the disk surface. It's this
ability to deliver light in tiny 350 micron spots, with the MEMS
mirrors also tracking the result, that lets the head arm precisely
position itself to as many as 100,000 discrete tracks along each
inch of the disk's surface -
http://www.seagate.com/corp/vpr/quinta/oawbrief.shtml .
Of course this will happen just in time -- my disk drives are always
almost full. But what I really like about developments such as these
is how they serve as a reminder that we always find ways around or
through most any "limit," (in this case, the "superparamagnetic
limit; the theoretical areal density limit of traditional magnetic
recording technology."
(http://www.seagate.com/corp/vpr/quinta/oawrel.shtml)
Is this the end game for storage? I suggest that the rapidly
changing face of computing, and the intense innovation that drives
it, assures that this is only the beginning! It's kind of like the
potato chip ad -- the more storage we consume, the more they make.
And with the growing use of digitized video, a good thing it is!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chips Ahoy.
* Speaking of finding ways past "limits," you've probably read
about how thin the elements that make up our semiconductors
have become, typically a quarter of a micron wide (one micron
is 1/25,000 of an inch). And you may have read that to get
beyond the next incremental shrinking (.18 micron lines), it
may be necessary to move to (currently) esoteric and expensive
techniques such as using electron beams or X-rays, instead of
light, to define the elements.
Well, RCFoC readers such as Will Moselle and Jim Reuter were
quick to latch onto a new development from DuPont and the
University of Texas where they approached the problem from an
oblique angle. Instead of moving to a shorter wavelength of
electromagnetic energy to expose the photoresist that defines
the details on each layer of the chip, they focused on
improving the photoresist and related elements to make more
effective use of the light used today.
The result? They expect to be able to continue using today's
optical lithography equipment to create chip elements as narrow
as .08 microns without the expense of new plants full of new
technology! And of course thinner elements mean smaller
transistors, which mean faster chips drawing less power --
pretty good ideas! Additional insights are at
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,19419,00.html?nd .
* Or how about a completely different type of chip brought to our
attention by Johan Van Gompel; one that relies on quantum
effects? It seems that Sandia National Laboratory has developed
a prototype "quantum transistor" called DELLT (Double Electron
Layer Tunneling Transistor). The DELLT is not only ten times
faster than traditional devices (up to a trillion operations
per second!) and much more power-efficient, but it would
require far fewer transistors for a given application since
each quantum transistor is capable of maintaining three, rather
than the traditional two states -- on, off, and, according to
the Feb. 17 Mercury News, "kind of off"
(http://www.sjmercury.com/business/center/quantm021898.htm),
yielding 50% more information capacity per transistor.
How does it work? By "tunneling," according to Sandia's Jerry
Simmons,
"[Think] of the two different [types of] transistors as
garden hoses. Step hard on a garden hose to cut off the
flow of water and your foot acts like the gate inside a
conventional transistor that stops current from flowing
through the device.
With a quantum transistor, there are actually two hoses
lying side-by-side, Simmons said. The water can be allowed
to flow through both -- meaning the circuit is 'on' -- or
a foot can stamp down hard to shut off the flow in both --
meaning the circuit is 'off.'
The third state -- that nebulous 'kind of off' state --
occurs 'when you press with your foot just the right
amount. Then the electrons can magically jump from one
hose to the other, right through the hose material
itself.'"
The concept isn't new, but Sandia has come up with the first
way to create quantum transistors using traditional
semiconductor techniques instead of exacting laboratory
processes. Their next hurdle is that their current quantum
transistors prefer to be "way cool" -- 320 degrees below zero
(F) to be exact, although they expect to warm them up to room
temperature within a year.
* Then there are advances coming along in more traditional chips,
such as Intel's Covington (a 266 MHz Pentium II sans cache)
which will hit the marked in April under the name "Celeron,"
Mendocino (a similar chip with Level-2 cache), and higher-end
Pentium IIs ranging up to 450 MHz. Check out an overview of
Intel's roadmap at
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,19260,00.html?nd . Or, if
your tastes run to the 64-bit Merced which may arrive running
at 1 GHz, you'll find the latest speculation at
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,19654,00.html?nd .
All in all, some very good examples of how the technologies driving
the rapidly changing face of computing show no likelihood at all of
slowing down!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Newton Is Dead. Long Live the PDA.
It was a hot summer day in Boston some years ago, and I was one of
those thousands of people lined up for hours to purchase the first
Newtons at MacWorld Expo. Listening to Apple, the Newton would
understand my handwriting, do away with my keyboard, and change my
life by keeping all my important information close to hand. It would
schedule my days, track my expenses, and point me to the best
restaurants for my evenings. So with great anticipation I finally
got to the front of the line and paid my homage by credit card.
Then, along with a lot of others holding hands with their new
Newtons for the first time, I found a spot on the floor to begin my
love affair with my Personal Digital Assistant.
Now if I was a romance novelist, I would revel you with our
tempestuous relationship: How Newton just didn't understand me (my
handwriting, at least). How Newton tended to say, "Not tonight,
Honey; I'm tired" as its batteries wore quickly down at just the
wrong times. And how Newton and my Macintosh just "didn't
communicate" very well, making it difficult to synchronize with my
main calendar. So, after the blush of first love paled, Newton and I
went our separate ways; Newton to the back of a drawer, and me to a
Sharp Wizard. Ah, such is life.
The thing is, the Newton was really a marvelous piece of technology!
No one before had come out with anything approaching the flexibility
and potential of the Newton. But if you had read the hype, stated
and implied, that preceded the Newton's introduction, reality would
have to have paled. Occasional handwriting recognition (to be
charitable), limited storage, the need for non-standard (non-Mac)
specialized applications, and most especially its limited
communications and synchronization capabilities, left the Newton
perhaps easy to love, but difficult to live with. And so now it is
dead
(http://www.techweb.com/se/techsearch.cgi?action=View&doc_id=INV1998
0227S0004).
Of course the likes of Sharp
(http://www.sharp-usa.com/main.asp?sect=1&pageid=AE) and Casio
(http://www.casio-usa.com/cgi/index.cgi?cat=pdas&ser=BOSS/Digital+Di
aries), and later US Robotics with their Palm Pilot
(http://palmpilot.3com.com/) and Windows CE Handheld PCs from
vendors such as Compaq
(http://www.compaq.com/products/handhelds/index.html) have
demonstrated that people really do buy ($$$) into the concept of a
PDA. But thankfully I've noticed a distinct lack of the hype that
accompanied the Newton. In many ways, this new crop of organizers
and handheld PCs under-promise and over-deliver, focusing directly
on providing an end-user experience that simply makes peoples'
business day a bit easier; not on trying to change their lives. To
me, that's a good model. Especially after my failed affair with
Newton, having my PDA "unexpectedly delight" me as it assists would
feel very good indeed.
But as those memories of Newton now fade, spring is just around the
corner, leaving me wondering what new PDAs are poised to flirt with
our affections. Will we wear them on our wrist? Will they reach out
and touch via satellite? Will they speak and listen? You never know,
given the rapidly changing face of computing...
Goodbye, Newton, you will be missed; if not for what you delivered,
then for your wonderful, yet-to-be-fulfilled promises!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ecommerce Update.
There's quite a bit of activity on the Ecommerce front this week
which, according to IDC's Frank Gens at Directions 98, reached the
$8 billion level at the end of last year and is destined to grow 40
times, to $333 billion, by 2002!
But Gens cautions that we may not quite recognize the landscape
we'll find by then. Today, we reasonably equate Ecommerce with PCs,
since they represent 96% of online access devices that are sold. But
by 2001, IDC expects PCs will only represent only 58% of the online
access devices, supplemented by a dramatically growing number of
set-top boxes (like WebTV), screen phones, communicative PDAs, and
more. And even among the PCs still sold then, IDC believes that by
2001 today's trend towards lower cost PCs (33% now cost less than
$1,500) will have increased to include 70% of PCs sold. And the
lowest end of the spectrum will be approaching the mythical $500
price point!
Talk about implications for today's vendors! And not only for
hardware vendors -- consider what happens to the software market
when 42% of access devices sold won't run Windows 2000? According to
Gens, "...focus by developers exclusively on Windows as the dominant
client API is going to be a very limiting strategy."
Here are some other Ecommerce tidbits:
* The March Netcraft Web server survey
(http://www.netcraft.co.uk/Survey/) found that there are now
more than two million Internet (public) Web servers, compared
to 19,000 in mid-1995 and one million in mid-1997 (notice the
curve -- less than one year for that second million.)
* The Web is now fueling litigation fever. According to the Feb.
24 Zona Quinielas, Swisher International is the target of a
class action suit led by Professional Carpet Systems, and PCS
has set up its litigation database right on the Web to provide
consistent information about the suit to all interested
parties. In effect, they're using the Web "to convey large
chunks of information to a small, targeted group of people," a
task as which it excels. Want to bet this isn't the last such
use?
* There's a bit more this week about "broadcasting" moving to the
Web. The Feb. 23 InternetWeek indicates that in addition to the
over 1,100 "radio" stations broadcasting 24 hours per day on
the Web to a global audience, Disney is now planning "video and
entertainment services" using IP Multicasting, beginning in the
next couple of months. And NBC, not to be left out, plans to
offer Internet-only content in conjunction with shows such as
Homicide and The Tonight Show
(http://www.techweb.com/se/techsearch.cgi?action=View&doc_id=TW
B19980223S0005). It may not (yet) be full-screen, full-motion
video (not even close), but there's a lot to be said for being
able to watch certain material whenever, and from wherever you
wish. Content providers are clearly listening...
* Do you have reservations about doing Ecommerce on the Web?
Well, according to the Feb. 27 Internet Daily, Hilton Hotels
does not, since their 18-month-old site (http://www.hilton.com)
is generating "tens of millions of dollars in business,"
according to Hilton's Bruce Rosenberg.
* The past nine months have seen a 300% increase in people buying
airline tickets and conducting online stock and mutual fund
trading, according to @plan, who found that 24% of those on the
Web are now shopping online. They also found that online book
buying has risen from 1.2 million nine months ago, to 2.3
million today. Other "hot categories" for Ecommerce, according
to the March 2 Internet Daily, include computer hardware and
car rentals.
* Remember when FEDEX changed the face of the package delivery
business by embracing new methods and technologies? It may be
that UPS intends to take the, er, high road, this time with the
announcement of UPS Document Exchange
(http://www.ups.com/news/980304netdox.html). This is a two-tier
secure electronic document delivery service where the high end,
UPS OnLine Dossier, will use two forms of encryption for
security plus digital certificates for positive identification
of the parties involved. The service will also provide tracking
and receipt-confirmation. Service begins within the next few
months.
OK, Ecommerce may still only be a blip on the GNP, but if IDC's
predictions of $333 billion in a few years plays out, that's not, as
they say, chicken soup. Do you want to be a watcher, rather than a
player, in a third of a trillion-dollar market?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Building Bugs In!
Finally, most hardware and software vendors work rather hard to keep
bugs out of their products. But according to the March 5
Computergram International, Japanese scientists have now grafted a
male silkworm's antenna onto a robot that can now sense when an
alluring silkworm female is in the area, and head towards her.
Just a scientific springtime fancy? Not at all, they suggest, as
they think about extending this basic ability to merge bugs and
bits. Imagine a queen bee or queen ant robot that could control
where a hive swarmed, or a squadron of camera-equipped moths
carrying out insect-sized inspection trips...
It may sound, well, a bit buggy, but this is a rather different form
of "Convergence" with a very capital "C"!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
About the "Rapidly Changing Face of Computing."
"The Rapidly Changing Face of Computing" is a weekly technology
journal providing insight, analysis and commentary on contemporary
computing and the technologies that drive it.
The RCFoC is written by Jeffrey R. Harrow (jeff.harrow@digital.com),
a Senior Consulting Engineer with the Corporate Research & Advanced
Development Group of Digital Equipment Corporation.
The RCFoC is published as a service of, but not necessarily
reflecting the opinions of, Digital Equipment Corporation. Copyright
(c) 1998, Digital Equipment Corporation. All rights reserved.
Where To Find the
"Rapidly Changing Face of Computing"
Technology Journal
You can subscribe to this weekly journal which
will help you keep up on the changes that are
constantly occurring in our industry! AVAILABLE
TO THE PUBLIC AT NO CHARGE
* Via the Web -- Read it via the World Wide Web, at
http://www.digital.com/rcfoc/
* Via PointCast -- Install PointCast Version 2 or
later from http://www.pointcast.com , and then
point your Web browser to
http://www.digital.com/rcfoc/rcfoc.cdf to have the
RCFoC installed under PointCast's "Connection" tab.
* Via Email -- each issue will be delivered
automatically to your Email mailbox. Alternatively,
a brief "notification-only message" can be mailed
to you as each new issue is posted to the Web.
To subscribe to one or both of these Automatic
Email mailings, you can:
* Via the Web, choose the appropriate options on
the self-explanatory subscription page at
http://www.digital.com/subscription/ ,
or
* Via Email, send a mail message to
majordomo@majordomo.das-x.dec.com with a BLANK
subject line.
In the BODY of the message (on a single line),
enter:
subscribe rapidly-changing-face-of-computing
YourEmailAddress
or
subscribe rapidly-changing-face-of-computing-notify
YourEmailAddress
depending on if you wish the full issue
Emailed to you, or only a notification that a
new issue is available on its Web site. You'll
receive a confirmation via Email.
| Sysop: | Ragnarok |
|---|---|
| Location: | Dock Sud, Bs As, Argentina |
| Users: | 136 |
| Nodes: | 10 (0 / 10) |
| Uptime: | 14:47:25 |
| Calls: | 15,171 |
| Calls today: | 4 |
| Files: | 19,857 |
| D/L today: |
82 files (7,720K bytes) |
| Messages: | 1,691,735 |