Tech leaders warn of 'great divide'
USA Today - 06/18/98- Updated 12:57 PM ET
NEW YORK -- The digital economy threatens to spawn a technological
underclass, industry leaders warned Tuesday.
Access must be a priority, agreed seven powerful figures from the
worlds of communications, computing and government, who gathered at
a technology summit convened Tuesday by USA TODAY.
"We will have a two-tiered system . . . a great divide created by
technology," warns Rich McGinn, CEO of equipment maker Lucent
Technologies.
The trouble has already started, says William Kennard, chairman of the
Federal Communications Commission. Only 27% of U.S. classrooms
have the infrastructure to support computers, he says. Only 14% of
minority schools and 4% of rural schools are prepared.
"It goes to our competitiveness as an economy," he says.
"If we don't educate them on how to use these products . . . our
customers, shareholders, employees will be someplace else,'' says
Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computer.
Their concerns were shared by other panelists.
They spoke for nearly two hours about what digital media and technology
will offer consumers in three to five years. Some highlights:
They disagreed over the general pace of change. "I do not think in
three to five years our lives are going to change radically,'' says
Brian Roberts, president of cable TV operator Comcast.
Eric Benhamou, CEO of data networking equipment maker 3Com,
predicts "that as the Internet gets closer to people's homes, there
will be a few fundamental shifts in the lifestyle and habits.''
There was no consensus on how quickly televisions, computers
and other devices will converge into new appliances. "Am I really
going to have 367 appliances in every room catering to every
different need of every different family member?" asks Aliza
Sherman, president of Web pioneer Cybergrrl.
Consumers will be introduced to a wave of products and services.
Cars will come equipped with 3-inch satellite dishes that capture
CD-quality radio broadcasts. Computer programs will
automatically translate phone calls from one language to another.
Video conferencing will be cheap. Homes will start to enjoy the
high-speed Internet access now largely limited to businesses.
McGinn says consumers may be assigned their own frequencies on the
radio spectrum, allowing them to send and receive large amounts of data.
Scott Sassa, president of NBC's TV stations unit, says new technology
such as high-definition television will change the world in unpredictable
ways.
"One thing about technology is it's never on time, and it never does
exactly what you think it's supposed to,'' he says.
Finally, companies, they say, have a responsibility to make technological
change simpler for consumers.
"We get literally thousands of calls every day from people who are
complaining about all manner of ways that they feel that they have been
let down by technology,'' Kennard says.
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