E-books and e-publishing - Samuel Vaknin (best historical fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗
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instructions and to convey information gathered from their
environment (mostly, from the user).
This is part fo the philosophy of the JAVA programming
language. It deals with applets - small bits of software - and
links different computer platforms by means of software.
Put differently:
Future servers will contain not only information (as they do
today) - but also software applications. The user of an
application will not be forced to buy it. He will not be
driven into hardware-related expenditures to accommodate the
ever growing size of applications. He will not find himself
wasting his scarce memory and computing resources on passive
storage. Instead, he will use a browser to call a central
computer. This computer will contain the needed software,
broken to its elements (=applets, small applications). Anytime
the user wishes to use one of the functions of the
application, he will siphon it off the central computer. When
finished - he will “return” it. Processing speeds and response
times will be such that the user will not feel at all that it
is not with his own software that he is working (the question
of ownership will be very blurred in such a world). This
technology is available and it provoked a heated debated about
the future shape of the computing industry as a whole
(desktops - really power packs - or network computers, a
little more than dumb terminals). Applications are already
offered to corporate users by ASPs (Application Service
Providers).
In the last few years, scientists put the combined power of
the computers linked to the internet at any given moment to
perform astounding feats of distributed parallel processing.
Millions of PCs connected to the net co-process signals from
outer space, meteorological data and solve complex equations.
This is a prime example of a collective brain in action.
2. The Intranet - a Logical Extension of the Collective
Computer
LANs (Local Area Networks) are no longer a rarity in corporate
offices. WANs (wide Area Networks) are used to connect
geographically dispersed organs of the same legal entity
(branches of a bank, daughter companies, a sales force). Many
LANs are wireless.
The intranet / extranet and wireless LANs will be the winners.
They will gradually eliminate both fixed line LANs and WANs.
The Internet offers equal, platform-independent, location-independent and time of day - independent access to all the
members of an organization.Sophisticated firewall security
application protects the privacy and confidentiality of the
intranet from all but the most determined and savvy hackers.
The Intranet is an inter-organizational communication network,
constructed on the platform of the Internet and which enjoys
all its advantages. The extranet is open to clients and
suppliers as well.
The company’s server can be accessed by anyone authorized,
from anywhere, at any time (with local - rather than
international - communication costs). The user can leave
messages (internal e-mail or v-mail), access information -
proprietary or public - from it and to participate in “virtual
teamwork” (see next chapter).
By the year 2002, a standard intranet interface will emerge.
This will be facilitated by the opening up of the TCP/IP
communication architecture and its availability to PCs. A
billion USD will go just to finance intranet servers - or, at
least, this is the median forecast.
The development of measures to safeguard server routed inter-organizational communication (firewalls) is the solution to
one of two obstacles to the institution of the Intranet. The
second problem is the limited bandwidth which does not permit
the efficient transfer of audio (not to mention video).
It is difficult to conduct video conferencing through the
Internet. Even the voices of discussants who use internet
phones come out (slightly) distorted.
All this did not prevent 95% of the Fortune 1000 from
installing intranet. 82% of the rest intend to install one by
the end of this year. Medium to big size American firms have
50-100 intranet terminals per every internet one.
At the end of 1997, there were 10 web servers per every other
type of server in organizations. The sale of intranet related
software was projected to multiply by 16 (to 8 billion USD) by
the year 1999.
One of the greatest advantages of the intranet is the ability
to transfer documents between the various parts of an
organization. Consider Visa: it pushed 2 million documents per
day internally in 1996.
An organization equipped with an intranet can (while protected
by firewalls) give its clients or suppliers access to non-classified correspondence. This notion has its charm.
Consider a newspaper: it can give access to all the materials
which were discarded by the editors. Some news are fit to
print - yet are discarded because of space limitations.
Still, someone is bound to be interested. It costs the
newspaper close to nothing (the material is, normally, already
computer-resident) - and it might even generate added
circulation and income. It can be even conceived as an
“underground, non-commercial, alternative” newspaper for a
wholly different readership.
The above is but one example of the possible use of the
intranet to communicate with the organization’s consumer base.
3. Mail and ChatThe Internet (its e-mail possibilities) is eroding traditional
mail. The market share of the post office in conveying
messages by regular mail has dwindled from 77% to 62% (1995).
E-mail has expanded to capture 36% (up from 19%).
90% of customers with on-line access use e-mail from time to
time and 60% work with it regularly. More than 2 billion
messages traverse the internet daily.
E-mail applications are available as freeware and are included
in all browsers. Thus, the Internet has completely assimilated
what used to be a separate service, to the extent that many
people make the mistake of thinking that e-mail is a feature
of the Internet. Microsoft continues to incorporate previously
independent applications in its browsers - a behaviour which
led to the 1999 anti-trust lawsuit against it.
The internet will do to phone calls what it has done to mail.
Already there are applications (Intel’s, Vocaltec’s,
Net2Phone) which enable the user to conduct a phone
conversation through his computer. The voice quality has
improved. The discussants can cut into each others words,
argue and listen to tonal nuances. Today, the parties (two or
more) engaging in the conversation must possess the same
software and the same (computer) hardware. In the very near
future, computer-to-regular phone applications will eliminate
this requirement. And, again, simultaneous multimodality: the
user can talk over the phone, see his party, send e-mail,
receive messages and transfer documents - without obstructing
the flow of the conversation.
The cost of transferring voice will become so negligible that
free voice traffic is conceivable in 3-5 years. Data traffic
will overtake voice traffic by a wide margin.
This beats regular phones.
The next phase will probably involve virtual reality. Each of
the parties will be represented by an “avatar”, a 3-D figurine
generated by the application (or the user’s likeness mapped
into the software and superimposed on the the avatar). These
figurines will be multi-dimensional: they will possess their
own communication patterns, special habits, history,
preferences - in short: their own “personality”.
Thus, they will be able to maintain an “identity” and a
consistent pattern of communication which they will develop
over time.
Such a figure could host a site, accept, welcome and guide
visitors, all the time bearing their preferences in its
electronic “mind”. It could narrate the news, like “Ananova”
does. Visiting sites in the future is bound to be a much more
pleasant affair.
4. E-cashIn 1996, the four corporate giants (Visa, MasterCard, Netscape
and Microsoft) agreed on a standard for effecting secure
payments through the Internet: SET. Internet commerce is
supposed to mushroom by a factor of 50 to 25 billion USD. Site
owners will be able to collect rent from passing visitors - or
fees for services provided within the site. Amazon instituted
an honour system to collect donations from visitors. Dedicated
visitors will not be deterred by such trifles.
5. The Virtual OrganizationThe Internet allows simultaneous communication between an
almost unlimited number of users. This is coupled with the
efficient transfer of multimedia (video included) files.
This opens up a vista of mind boggling opportunities which are
the real core of the Internet revolution: the virtual
collaborative (“Follow the Sun”) modes.
Examples:
A group of musicians will be able to compose music or play it
- while spatially and temporally separated;
Advertising agencies will be able to co-produce ad campaigns
in a real time interactive mode;
Cinema and TV films will be produced from disparate
geographical spots through the teamwork of people who never
meet, except through the net.
These examples illustrate the concept of the “virtual
community”. Locations in space and time will no longer hinder
a collaboration in a team: be it scientific, artistic,
cultural, or for the provision of services (a virtual law firm
or accounting office, a virtual consultancy network).
Two on going developments are the virtual mall and the virtual
catalogue.
There are well over 300 active virtual malls in the Internet.
They were frequented by 32.5 million shoppers, who shopped in
them for goods and services in 1998. The intranet can also be
thought of as a “virtual organization”, or a “virtual
business”.
The virtual mall is a computer “space” (pages) in the
internet, wherein “shops” are located. These shops offer their
wares using visual, audio and textual means. The visitor
passes a gate into the store and looks through its offering,
until he reaches a buying decision. Then he engages in a
feedback process: he pays (with a credit card), buys the
product and waits for it to arrive by mail. The manufacturers
of digital products (intellectual property such as e-books or
software) have begun selling their merchandise on-line, as
file downloads.
Yet, slow communications and limited bandwidth - constrain the
growth potential of this mode of sale. Once solved -
intellectual property will be sold directly from the net, online. Until such time, the intervention of the Post Office is
still required. So, then virtual mall is nothing but a
glorified computerized mail catalogue or Buying Channel, the
only difference being the exceptionally varied inventory.
Websites which started as “specialty stores” are fast
transforming themselves into multi-purpose virtual malls.
Amazon.com, for instance, has bought into a virtual pharmacy
and into other virtual businesses. It is now selling music,
video, electronics and many other products. It started as a
bookstore.
This contrasts with a much more creative idea: the virtual
catalogue. It is a form of narrowcasting (as opposed to
broadcasting): a surgically accurate targeting of potential
consumer audiences. Each group of profiled consumers (no
matter how small) is fitted with their own - digitally
generated - catalogue. This is updated daily: the variety of
wares on offer (adjusted to reflect inventory levels, consumer
preferences and goods in transit) - and prices (sales,
discounts, package deals) change in real time.
The user will enter the site and there delineate his
consumption profile and his preferences. A customized
catalogue will be immediately generated for him.
From then on, the history of his purchases, preferences and
responses to feedback questionnaires will be accumulated and
added to a database.
Each catalogue generated for him will come replete with order
forms. Once the user concluded his purchases, his profile will
be updated.
There is no technological obstacles to implementing this
vision today - only administrative and legal ones. Big retail
stores are not up to processing the flood of data expected to
arrive. They also remain highly sceptical regarding the
feasibility of the new medium. And privacy issues prevent data
mining or the effective collection and usage of personal data.
The virtual catalogue is a private case of a new internet offshoot: the “smart (shopping) agents”. These are AI
applications with “long memories”.
They draw detailed profiles of consumers and users and then
suggest purchases and refer to the appropriate sites,
catalogues, or virtual malls.
They
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