notice the zenith reference in the following editorial:
an amusing note for historical trivia, and an ironic
foreshadowing, perhaps...
Friday Febuary 6 1:18 PM PST
Waiting for reality to kick in
By Tom Steinert - Threlkeld
If this is the future, then the only valid emotion is fright.
At industry pundit David Coursey's annual Internet Showcase, the network of networks seemed to know no creative bounds. Then again, a lot of this creativity could use some boundaries.
There you had the human phoenix of personal computing software, Daniel Bricklin, giving voice to yet another beyond the bleeding edge, new adaptation of traditional ink-on-paper content.
This man first wiped out the columnar pad and No. 2 pencil among hard-working accountants and business planners. He's the guy who brought the world the electronic spreadsheet almost two decades ago, giving any poor sucker with a get-rich-quick scheme the ability to pour out mountains of financial projections before breakfast.
Now, he wants to do away with text documents as well. With his latest piece of software, called Trellix, he believes he's found a way to break the pieces of business plans, financial reports and other such things into screen documents.
"This is better than paper," he says.
Before you chuck the output of dead trees into the circular file, however, get ready to water your trees, using Internet protocols. Emware Inc. has figured out how to extend the tentacles of the Net out under your flower beds and Augustine grass. Now you can embed Internet communications into your home weather station and lawn sprinkler system -- and worry no longer about watering your lawn in the midst of a rainstorm.
"We finally have the answer to that problem, ladies and gentleman," Coursey crows.
Sad though is the notion that so many of the items at this showplace of the "best of the Internet" are simply great technology with no clear reason for being.
Certainly, the Internet hasn't spent more than 25 years in incubation just to make it possible for people to adopt the alter ego of a swine, in order to learn about personal finance. Sure, we all want to be filthy rich. But that doesn't mean we have to wander about on-screen as anthropomorphic pigs in Piggyland, as the Online Interactive Network Corp., also known as OINC, would have you do.
With this level of inventiveness, the Net soon will leave syndicated television and Beavis and Butthead behind as mainstream America's chief cause of brain degeneration. Could WebTV really outstrip network television in the vastness of its wasted thought and effort?
After all, we're entering an era in which we must worry not just about the effects of a digital living room, as Coursey's Next Big Conference will address, but a digital cocoon that will envelop us all.
The Microsoft Corp. AutoPC will keep our electronic mail coming to us, even while we make that wheel-squeaking U-turn into Arby's for a late-night snack. Never mind that the text-to-speech generator in our dashboard accidentally makes the order-taker believe we want 16 messages, when all he has on the menu is French dip sandwiches. And the Microsoft PalmPC will let us run our virtual office out of our online briefcase, while General Magic Inc.'s Serengeti talking assistant responds to our every scheduling whim along the way.
Somehow, it's hard to imagine everyone trying to talk to a computer in the dashboard, a computer in their hand and a computer in their living room. Electronic contraptions have no more need to be anthropomorphized than pigs, in most cases. Funny, no one seemed to want to talk to their TVs 15 years ago, when Zenith tried it. Why now? Just because we can?
At this showcase of Internet innovation, there were Post-it Notes on Web pages that promised to clutter our screens with enough merchant reminders to spell doom in the digital kitchen era for the refrigerator magnet. Quiz Studio Chief Executive Officer Terry Levy was convinced that his instant surveying software was the answer to those plagues of modern surveying, the evening telephone call and the broken pencil tip during college entrance examinations. And Homestead Inc. is sure relatives separated by huge distances will want to bond in "hours of mindless chat" and group photo mischief on interactive family home pages.
In the end, WavePhore Inc. Vice President Bill Nguyen seemed to sum it all up pretty well, when demonstrating the company's WaveTop system for receiving customized news, using a TV tuner card in a PC. It's "total hypeware," he said, but it is "so cool" it somehow deserves to succeed. "Hopefully," because of the intrinsic worth of the genius involved, revenue and profit "will kick in one day."
Maybe. But don't kick yourself if the Web doesn't turn out to produce quite the intellectual revolution that seemed its inescapable destiny two or three years ago. In the end, it can only reflect the intellects that use it, not overhaul all those that come in contact with it.
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