The buzz words these days are convergence, internet devices, digital TV, etc. Lucent, the cable companies, the phone companies, the computer companies, CPU vendors, etc are all trying to catch this wave of the "future" and bring it into the "present".
Although the possibilities of reducing all communication down to bits (sampling voice into chunks of data, breaking down the moving picture into pixels, packetizing graphics, text, and other forms of information and moving them around the world through the internet is in fact possible, we are still a long way from realizing the buzzwords into reality, no matter how big the hype. And there's a lot of it going around in the "news" these days, especially in light of the internet, where text is plentiful.
The fact remains that we are all a long way off from a fast enough network to realize all these claims in a cost efficient way. IIA's ICM is a practical and innovative (deserving of its patent) for the Internet and the telephone industry today and the years to come. |
