Can Tandy Bring It On Home?; The F.B.I. Wants 'Dumb` Network
The Staggering Scope Of the Internet; I/O
SimGraphics does Mario, real time; The PDA cometh
Pick a format, any format; CableLabs tunes in computer industry
More ways to milk old copper wire; Briefs
Events

Can Tandy Bring It  On Home?	3

As a partner with Microsoft in developing the Multimedia PC (mpc) specification, Tandy has provided the hardware, and a long promotional and distribution arm, to help promote the mpc.

But Tandy's interest in multimedia does not stop with the mpc. Rumors of a consumer "player" called Gryphon have been rippling through the industry, and after a recent visit to Tandy's headquarters, it is clear that the company intends to remain an active player in every product market -- present and future. 

The F.B.I. Wants 'Dumb' Networks	7

Virtually everyone is looking at new ways to transmit digital information, either over wires or through the airwaves. Large pan-industry investments are being made based on the assumption that a vast amount of commerce can and will be conducted over networks.

But a legislative proposal instigated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation called "Digital Telephony" throws that assumption into question today. The agency believes that as signals sent over telephone lines become digital, it will be incapable of finding and recording the conversations that it is legally entitled to intercept. As a result, it wants vendors to "dumb down" their equipment -- or else.

The Staggering Scope Of the Internet	19

The Internet is actually made up of a backbone of computers connected by a mix of leased phone lines and fast fiber optic links. In turn, thousands of separate networks hang off the main backbone like branches off the trunk of a tree, creating a metanetwork that connects tens of thousands of even smaller networks. Today the Internet has at least two to three million users, but some estimates run as high as ten million. There's really no way to accurately gauge the scope of this amazing matrix.

I/O
Is technology killing creativity?

SimGraphics does Mario, real time
Real-time animation may launch the Pasadena, CA, company into films and theme parks.

The first PDA cometh
Apple and Sharp announce plans to develop, manufacture and distribute the first Personal Digital Assistant. 

Pick a format, any format
New interface board makes authoring cheaper on multiple cd formats.

CableLabs tunes in computer industry
Cable tv is polling computer experts for help with the next generation of cable services.

More ways to milk old copper wire
Bellcore says there's a way to eke multimedia performance out of existing phone lines.

Briefs
Will SkyPix launch?; Library of Congress opens multimedia lab; IMA does "rights" stuff; Loan guarantees for education satellites; Microsoft does fractals; Macromedia arrives.

Events

Focus

Can Tandy Bring It on Home?

The U.S.'s biggest electronics retailer knows the hearts and wallets of regular folks

For nearly two years, Tandy Corporation has been at the forefront of multimedia computing. As a partner with Microsoft in developing the Multimedia PC (mpc) specification, Tandy has provided the hardware, and a long promotional and distribution arm, to help promote the mpc.

But as you might suspect from the largest consumer electronics manufacturer and retailer in the United States, Tandy's interest in multimedia does not stop with the mpc. Rumors of a consumer "player" called Gryphon have been rippling through the industry for many months, and after a recent visit to Tandy's headquarters in Fort Worth, TX, it is abundantly clear that the company intends to maintain its reputation as a player in every active electronics product market -- those existing as well as those yet to be created.

A blessing or a curse?

Charles Tandy revived nine Boston-based, bankrupt "electronic hardware stores" called Radio Shack in 1963, turning them into a one-stop shop for discount consumer electronics components such as transistors, circuit breakers and hobbyist kits. Tandy subsequently opened one new store a day across the U.S. for nine years. The quality wasn't the best, the packaging wasn't elegant, but the price was right. 

And this is Tandy's legacy to this day. It is a proven leader at making new technology products accessable to the average consumer, but bringing down cost by any significant factor always means bringing down the quality level a bit, too. In any event, Tandy is an enormously successful retail company, with a distribution system that is second to none. It has a vast capacity for manufacturing its own or other vendors' products (for example, the new Digital Equipment laptop computer is a Tandy-made product). 

And it has nothing but incentive to be a contender in the coming market for personal information appliances and multimedia hardware that will bridge the span between two markets it already addresses in spades: personal computers and consumer electronics devices. 

Covering the waterfront on consumers and electronics 

Just so you know who you're dealing with, here's a list of some companies or divisions that Tandy operates:

	Radio Shack (7,000-plus retail outlets selling consumer electronics devices from stereo equipment to transistors).

	Computer City (second largest computer seller, by sales volume and number of stores, in the U.S., selling Tandy PCs, Apple, IBM and Compaq; one hundred outlets to be open by 1994).

	Grid Systems (makers of laptops and pen-based computers that support both of the current competitive pen-based operating systems).

	Victor Technologies Group (a major European-based computer vendor).

	Tandy Name Brand Retail Group (operates a number of retail chains that focus on early adopter-gadgeteers -- in this category, Tandy claims its McDuff's and VideoConcepts chains compete handily with Circuit City in sales of large-screen tvs, for example).

Not such a risky business. This breadth of retail coverage assures Tandy of being able to capitalize on just about anything happening in the retail market. If early adopters are buying expensive, Sony-brand equipment, the Name Brand Retail Group makes money off that trend. If personal computers are coming down in price and the home market starts to blossom (as it is), then Computer City will reap the benefits -- whether selling Tandys or Apples. When all the world wants a cb radio, as they seemed to in the '70s, Tandy can put its Realistic brand on the shelves and sell millions of dollars' worth until the fad burns itself out.

And best yet, Tandy's vast numbers of retail outlets make it possible to cover the consumer waterfront with little financial risk. Lowell Duncan, Tandy's corporate vice president of marketing, estimates that Tandy manufactures about half of what it sells. With the purchasing power of thousands of outlets, Tandy can buy or manufacture in volume and still sell in small numbers. For example, Tandy can buy 15,000 units of a new product and if it doesn't catch on, Tandy needs only sell two per store to "empty the shelves."

Amassing data on consumers and competitors. As the largest consumer electronics manufacturer and retailer in the United States, one of the largest computer retailers, and a direct marketer of computer equipment and services, Tandy has amassed vast amounts of data about the purchasing habits of the American public.

In fact, Tandy Information Services, an internal marketing resource, collects the sales information from almost 5,000 Radio Shack stores daily. That's eight to ten million customer transactions per month. From this data, the company is able to break down trends and opportunities by any marketing segment it wishes.

These are likely to be very handy features in the new world of personal digital electronics. When no one seems to know what's going on, as is true today, information is power. What better information to have at your fingertips than your very own, rock-solid mountain of consumer buying statistics? And Tandy can test-market a product at a significantly lower cost than its competitors who don't have the good fortune of owning their distribution channels -- not to mention the ability to track the sales of their products, which it also sells.

MPC: not an end, but a beginning

While Tandy has championed the mpc standard, and taken a very active leadership role in its future (Mike Grubbs, Tandy Electronics' senior director of marketing, is chairman of the mpc Marketing Council), it has taken a sober and decidedly non-reactionary look at the future of the multimedia personal computer, especially in its stronghold, the home market.

Multimedia capabilities are the most obvious manifestation of the computer industry's evolution. Like many (though not all) computer vendors, Tandy realizes that multimedia is not an end in itself. Just because a desktop computer can do multimedia does not mean that consumers will pay the $1,000-plus premium to buy one. In fact, they aren't.

Even business markets have only bought mpc products when they could provide a solution. They have not agreed that the mpc is the new base-level specification for desktop computing. Educational markets have shown a somewhat better response, but mpc boxes are still not generating substantial revenue.

These facts have not proven surprising to Tandy. Despite its early and continuing commitment to the mpc, the company believes that the mpc is only one of a series of entirely new product categories that will be developed over the next five years, with new markets and channels to support them.

And what might those new products be? 

The multimedia market, such as it is, has become a confusing mess of different product types, markets, users, tools, etc. There is no single target user; there is no single product that will answer everyone's needs (although Philips continues to swear that there is). In fact, it is still unclear exactly why, if at all, consumers really "need" multimedia.

Grubbs says Tandy's strategy for dealing with this confusion is to develop specialized products for what will be an extremely segmented market. He envisions whole families of products. Instead of a line of three or four computers, there would be 20 or 30 devices --each with specialized functions and features, but coming from the same "family." 

These products would range from personal information devices to home appliances to personal computers -- all available from the same (Tandy-owned) store, drawing on the same development tools and development paradigms. The particular applications and functions would depend on the market for which each device was designed. 

No comment on Gryphon. An obvious target for a company like Tandy would be a home multimedia player, Ö la cd-i or CDTV, based on industry-standard hardware and software -- in fact, this description supposedly defines Tandy's Gryphon product. But Grubbs and the entire Tandy team steadfastly refused to comment on the project. However, let's extrapolate a bit.

Creating a broad product line such as the one Grubbs describes will require many relationships with other companies. As we reported in last month's Digital Media, Microsoft is creating custom subsets of its Windows operating environment for use in all of the product areas mentioned above. Given Tandy's close working relationship with Microsoft on the mpc, and Microsoft's clearly stated intention to be in the consumer market, is it likely that Tandy is working with Microsoft (or some other equally powerful partner) on a home player? Take a guess.

In addition, Microsoft has been working with the cable television industry -- CableLabs in particular (see p. 15) -- to create a new interface for cable tv. And, it would seem that the cable infrastructure is one logical avenue through which digital media may travel to the home. It would not be surprising to hear an announcement from Microsoft and Tandy that they are developing a device to interface intelligently with incoming video signals, either from broadcast or cable tv.

The new markets

Tandy began its examination of these new markets by dividing up the large population groups into recognizable segments (see illustration).

According to Grubbs, the high end of the market has been filled by professional workstations and personal computers, with or without multimedia capabilities. The "home appliance" and "mass consumer" markets haven't been satisfied with the proper platforms, and this is where Tandy is focusing its development efforts. 

Understanding the home computer market. Tandy pretty much owns the home and home/office computer markets. Company representatives estimate that half of the 23 percent of American homes that have a computer own a Tandy computer. (These numbers are specifically directed at home computers, not necessarily those purchased for home/office use. Tandy's home/office computers, while not holding such a lock on the market, still have an impressive installed base.)

Tandy spent more than five years studying how computers are used in the home and how to create products for that market. In that time, Tandy developed the DeskMate interface, which is shipped with most Tandy computers. DeskMate provides 32 of the most popular and widely used computing tools for the home -- word processors, budgeting software, etc. Therefore, no matter what the customer's interests, there is a good chance that DeskMate filled at least one of them at no extra cost.

But as computing devices move toward the mass consumer market (to the left on above chart), Tandy believes that the needs and desires of the target customer will begin to diverge. There will become no single "typical" user; each has in mind his or her own concept about what a new device is good for. 

A dramatic drop in tolerance. In addition, users' tolerance for learning complex operations drops dramatically, as does their tolerance for high prices. Thus the new class of products must be simple and inexpensive. 

Although no one at Tandy would describe in detail the new home appliances, Grubbs makes it clear that they will be built upon these ideas. They will be specialized, simplified tools, with the internal power of a computer and the simple interface of a good consumer electronics device -- "simpler than a vcr," in the words of Grubbs. 

For example, they would have various selected basic functions and tools built in (Ö la DeskMate). There would be no need, or capability, to add applications or upgrade the hardware -- significantly reducing the cost of building the machine and making it easier to learn and use. In addition, Tandy can leverage its experience with the mpc by adding selected multimedia capabilities to these appliances if needed. 

Adding content to the mix

Only content -- titles -- would need to be added to the picture. And content could be accessed from any of the current or arriving delivery channels, including cd-rom, cable or satellite.

The truly mass consumer products (on the far left of the chart) need to address an even more diverse crowd. Therefore, these devices would be even more specialized and inexpensive as more applications and categories of users are discovered. 

These are the personal digital assistants, or pdas (in Apple's lingo, now adopted by Microsoft as well) -- single- or dedicated-function devices that answer specific market demands. Both product lines would be part of the same product "family," sharing similar core technologies.

As do many forward thinkers in the digital media world, Tandy believes that where utility (spreadsheets and word processors) once drove sales of personal computers, content will drive the sale of the new consumer/computer devices. 

Bringing it home to consumers

Tandy has high hopes for the future of digital media-based products. Grubbs says that Tandy is aiming for more than 25 percent penetration of American homes with its new consumer devices. To put that number in perspective, that's a higher market penetration than Nintendo has today. 

In many ways, Tandy is Japanese in its approach to the consumer electronics market. The company has proven expert in taking a new technology products and making it cheap enough for the average middle-class, non-yuppie consumer -- i.e., someone who can't buy Sony components or Apple computers -- to bring home. Remember that Tandy manufactured the first laptop computer, the Model 100, and was one of the first producers and marketers of cellular phones, and is currently co-developing the Digital Compact Cassette (dcc) format with Philips and Matsushita. It has also developed the Thor writable cd format, the development of which was stalled due to the rush to bring dcc to market.

It doesn't matter if they're wrong. Tandy intends to leverage its prowess in consumer merchandising to make home multimedia and information products a hit. Its strategy is to put the new products in front of people -- to confront them with the possibilities. Advertisements and talk are one thing, but with thousands of retail outlets, getting a consumer to sit down with a device and use it is a much easier task for Tandy than for many other vendors with the same goal.

What's most interesting about Tandy's strategy is that it doesn't much matter if its initial approaches are wrong. If its own products don't sell, it will also be selling its competitors' products. If everyone's products don't sell -- well, with its sweeping retail scope, it's doubtful that Tandy will be betting the entire farm on home multimedia and information products. And -- as mentioned earlier -- it can pull the plug on a product line very quickly and only have to sell a couple of units per store. 

Unlike companies such as Microsoft and Apple, which are topping out in the maturing personal computer business, Tandy still has plenty of other retail revenue streams to draw from until consumer desire catches up with technology. With a low-risk strategy like this, it's hard to see how Tandy can lose.

A problem with quality. One serious problem that Tandy will need to face, however, is the need for better quality in its hardware. A faulty 25-cent light bulb or even a B-grade transistor radio can be forgiven, but neither customers nor technology is very forgiving on the high end. 

The cd-rom drives currently used by Tandy in its mpc machines and upgrade kits, for example, are notoriously unreliable. Some major software developers believe that the drives do not perform at mpc-standard rates, and have warned their customers that their products will not run on Tandy cd-rom drives. Such problems work at cross-purposes to everything Tandy wants to accomplish. The company's desire to price aggressively must not get in the way of a working product. 

David Baron, Denise Caruso  

F.B.I. to 'Dumb Down' Telecom Equipment

Proposed legislation has unsettling implications for future of digital media

It is an unfortunate trait of humankind that we often do not note our watershed events until history has recorded their aftermath. 

The transition to digital technology that we are facing today is one of those watersheds. Almost every vendor in every area of computing, consumer electronics, data communication and telecommunication is looking at new ways to transmit digital information, either over wires or through the airwaves. What we are witnessing, whether we know it yet or not, is the building of a vast global network, with new foundations and new paradigms for communication and commerce. 

Safe and reasonable commerce

Large pan-industry investments (like the ones mentioned in "A Tremendous Blossoming," p. 9) are being made based on the assumption that such commerce can and will be conducted in a safe and reasonable manner over networks.

But that assumption is in question today. People who attended the second annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP-2) conference in Washington DC late last month were shocked to read copies of a legislative proposal instigated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation called "Digital Telephony." (See the F.B.I. proposal, p. 11.)The proposed bill, which could be tacked on as an amendment to an existing bill, is presently being sponsored by Ernest Hollings, the Democratic senator from South Carolina and chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Should government dictate product design? The proposal apparently sprang forth from the FBI's concern that it cannot keep up with digital communications technology, especially in the area of wiretap. The agency believes that as signals sent over telephone lines become digital, it will be incapable of finding and recording the conversations that it is legally entitled to intercept.

To avoid this scenario, the F.B.I. is proposing that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Attorney General's office be given the power to "determine the technological interception needs of the government" and issue regulations about how vendors must comply -- specifically to allow the F.B.I. (and other agencies like the National Security Agency) unimpeded access to all digital communications.

In other words, the FCC would be given authority to dictate product design in this fundamental regard. If such regulations are passed, vendors would have 180 days to comply. If they do not, they can be charged and fined $10,000 per day for each day in violation.

Faster police cars

Even more incredibly, the proposed legislation decrees that any FCC proceedings regarding design regulations, standards or registrations issued to equipment vendors will be closed to the public and conducted in secret. 

This proposal has the potential to affect every single area touched by digital media. It does not just limit the FCC's authority to traditional telephones and newer digital telephony technology. It would affect all kinds of computer communication, and likely radio communications as well.

Of course, one of the big questions is how far 

"wiretap" extends into the realm of non-voice digital communications -- i.e., e-mail, document and file transfer, the transmission of sound and video information -- which are increasingly in use today. Do files downloaded from the Internet constitute a type of communication the F.B.I. needs to monitor? 

Those who've studied the proposal believe the answer is yes, in which case it will affect everyone from standard computer network providers, who often connect customers to the outside world via telephone lines and equipment, to banks, whose automatic teller machines must use secure data lines to transmit financial and customer identification information, and companies like Apple Computer, now in the process of developing an entire line of personal communication devices. 

If encryption is outlawed . . . As more proprietary information is sent over networks, and as more systems are compromised by crackers, viruses and electronic eavesdroppers, equipment and software vendors as mainstream as Apple and Microsoft have begun incorporating high levels of security into their systems via encryption.

Cellular phone makers are doing the same thing. And as wireless communication traffic increases, one can expect that powerful security and encryption products will only become more popular, since more people will have access to interception technologies.

Though not specifically listed as a target in the proposal, many people are calling Digital Telephony "Son of S. 266," a failed Senate bill that required the same "dumbing-down" for encryption as the F.B.I. proposal does for phone systems. In other words, makers of encryption devices or software were to be required to leave a "back door" open for law-enforcement and security agencies that wanted to decode encrypted communication. 

The bill, of course, completely defeats the purpose of encryption -- leaving the "back door" open for the very same sophisticated techno-criminals that the agencies were trying to thwart. S. 266 was shouted down last year by outraged computer experts and civil libertarians.

At the CFP conference, encryption expert Whitfield Diffie said, "I understand why the police don't like [encryption]. But a very large part of the essence of a free versus totalitarian society consists of the difference between being answerable for your actions and being subject to prior restraint against actions the society doesn't approve of."

Making economic policy. Jim Bidzos, president of RSA Data Security, a public-key encryption firm, says the issue is both personal privacy and national competitiveness. The long-term effect of anti-encryption and related legislation is far worse than anything we've seen to date. 

"One could argue that economic policy is being made by the intelligence agencies," he said during a CFP panel on encryption. "That's not a good idea."

What's happening, he says, is that electronic commerce is driving industry and government into an adversarial role regarding encryption and data protection. "Crypto is moving into mainstream products, and people who are doing so now will want to continue," he says. "Government keeps trying to slip language into bills that weakens their ability to do so. They need to stop doing that. 

"What we really need is a national policy review --a Computer Security Act advisory board to Congress. It's the single more important thing we can do. We're long overdue to get some rational policy that will work for all of us."

How about cable? Satellite? Cellular?

But back to the F.B.I. proposal. Would the bill also have to restrict cable equipment, also capable of digital telecommunication? The cellular phone and data networks? Satellite communications? If monitoring of communications is what the F.B.I. is interested in, the way the industry is moving today would certainly indicate that any conduit of digital information would need to be "tappable."

Jerry Berman, director of the EFF's Washington DC office, certainly believes that particular threat is implied. "It's one thing to get cooperation from a phone company," he says. "It's another thing to go to CompuServe and say, 'We want to tap into electronic mail.' Or 'We want to know, when you're tapping into the line between EFF's Cambridge; whose data, voice, video is on that line. What's in the packet?' It's getting much more complicated to distinguish betwen different kinds of messages and different parties who are being bundled together. Any kind of dumbing-down to separate that out is contra-intuitive to the most efficient use of this technology."

As a Washington Post op-ed piece stated, the proposal is "an assault on progress, on scientific endeavor and on the competitive position of American industry. It's comparable to requiring Detroit to produce only automobiles that can be overtaken by faster police cars."

The trouble with 'tapping

It's true that the complexity of digital technology will make it harder, or even impossible, for law enforcement to conduct its wiretaps in the manner to which it has become accustomed. The prospect of techno-terrorists being able to use computers and sophisticated encryption techniques to thwart law-enforcement officials is a frightening one.

But it is important to remember that technology itself is never the problem. Technology only holds a magnifying glass to problems that already exist, and the desire to seek remedy by somehow controlling or legislating technology is a big step in the wrong direction. As Berman says, "If we can't compress data and move it quickly through an isdn or digital pipeline, to improve the infrastructure of the U.S., because the Bureau's having trouble wiretapping, then the whole future of our information age is at stake."

To put the issue in perspective, you must first look at the present state of affairs. William Sessions, director of the FBI, has stated publicly that so far the Bureau has not yet had any difficulty executing a warrant because of digital communications. In addition, says Marc Rotenberg, director of the Washington office of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, we must question why such far-reaching legislation is required for a law enforcement procedure of last resort.

Top of the charts. "I think the F.B.I. is sort of off the charts on this," says Rotenberg. "I know everyone else is talking about this as though they believe we're going to have some reasonable discussion at some point, but where they basically have come down on this issue is that the technology of the digital network doesn't go forward until they can be assured that they can continue to conduct wire surveillance." 

He says the proposal is contrary to the spirit of the wiretap law of 1968, which is termed an investigative method of last resort. "It is the most intrusive, most unbounded, most prone to abuse form of routine investigation," says Rotenberg. "For the F.B.I. to come back now and say that this is the primary concern is just not tenable -- it stands the law on its head."

In addition, he says, the proposal is simply impractical. The Bureau cannot reasonably expect to require every high tech firm in the United States to ensure that its system complies with the FBI's needs and requirements of the moment. And the secrecy of the standards-setting hearings, he says, is a sure way to bring technological innovation to a crawl. "Private computer firms and researchers are already coming forward saying the best way to slow innovation is to put up walls in the research community and start restricting information on security practices." 

An impressive list of naysayers

Factions from all corners of industry are rallying to fight the proposed legislation. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an industry watchdog for networking issues, is helping organize vendors to oppose the bill. EFF co-founder Mitch Kapor (also founder of Lotus Development) says there's an "enormous coalition growing" in opposition to the legislation. In fact, the EFF pulled together a coalition of concerned vendors and industry organizations who signed a letter to Sen. Hollings on April 9, expressing deep concern over the proposal.

Signers included AT&T, Cellular Telecommunications Industry Assoc., Computer & Business Equipment Manufacturers Assoc., Computer & Communications Industry Assoc., Digital Equipment Corp., the Electronic Mail Assoc., GTE Corp., IBM, the Information Industry Assoc., Lotus Development Corp., McCaw Cellular Communications Inc., Microsoft Corp., NYNEX, Pacific Telesis Group, Software Publishers Assoc., Southwestern Bell, Telecommunications Industry Assoc. and U.S. West Inc.

A spokeswoman for the influential Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP), an organization comprised of ceos of the 12 computer manufacturers, says the proposal has not yet been brought to the group as an issue.

Tracking the issues

The future of digital technologies depends on how we respond to the increasing number of challenges from government and law enforcement agencies on these critical issues.

There are two industry organizations watchdogging these issues from a civil liberties perspective that also have access to technical expertise through their illustrious membership rosters.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has generously offered to send a copy of the "Digital Telephony" to any interested party. Call (202) 544-9237. 

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility is based in Palo Alto, CA, and its Washington, DC office tracks policy issues. Call (202) 544-9240. 

Write your legislators. Most importantly, though, after getting up to speed on the facts, is to contact your representatives in Congress. You can also call Sen. Hollings, who is sponsoring the bill. The phone number is (202) 224-9340.

Since the proposal has been drafted as an amendment rather than a separate bill, people are worried that it might get slipped into a bill that has already passed one house and be sent quietly to conference. That would be very bad. The only way to make sure it doesn't happen is to let elected representatives know it's not okay to shove this kind of proposal through without spirited debate, discussions and public hearings. 

Denise Caruso  

The F.B.I. proposal

The following is taken directly from a Federal Bureau of Investigation document distributed to legislators and other concerned parties in Washington, DC. 

Digital Telephony: Summary of Issues

	The F.B.I. utilizes electronic surveillance (wire taps) in virtually every area of its investigative responsibilities.

 	The telecommunications industry, which remained virtually unchanged for approximately 50 years, is now rapidly changing to address the need for more advanced telecommunications systems, such as personal communications networks, advanced cellular and integrated services digital networks (isdn) which have the capacity for high-speed transmissions of video, voice and data.

 	One of the telephone telecommunications industry's major developmental efforts is to provide total digital connectivity (end to end) for its subscribers, including residential and business communities, in the near future. 

 	At present, no capability exists to intercept isdn (digital) transmissions; therefore, the emergence of digital telecommunications technology will preclude the F.B.I. and all of law enforcement from being able to intercept electronic communications, thus all but eliminating a statutorily-sanctioned, court-authorized and extraordinarily successful investigative technique. 

 	The Department of Justice and the F.B.I. have been working with the White House, various Administration agencies, the telecommunications industry and Congress to find a workable solution to this very serious problem that endangers the safety of the American public. A legislative solution has been developed to ensure that the legitimate need for law enforcement to lawfully intercept communications is met by the telecommunications industry.

Legislative Remedy

The proposal would amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require providers of electronic communications services and private branch exchanges to ensure that the Government's ability to lawfully intercept communications is unimpeded by the introduction of advanced digital telecommunications technology or any other emerging telecommunications technology. Specifically, the amendment provides the following:

1.	The FCC, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall determine the technological interception needs of the Government and issue regulations that will preserve the Government's ability to conduct lawful electronic surveillance.

2.	The FCC shall issue regulations within 120 days after enactment requiring the modification of existing telecommunication systems if those systems impede the Government's ability to conduct lawful electronic surveillance.

3.	Compliance by service providers and private branch exchanges will be required within 180 days of the issuance of the regulations and the use of non-conforming equipment is prohibited thereafter. 

4.	The FCC has the authority to compensate (through rate structure) telecommunication system operators under FCC jurisdiction for reasonable costs associated with required modifications of existing telecommunications equipment or technology.

5.	The Attorney General has specific authority, in addition to that already vested in the FCC, to seek civil penalties and injunctive relief for non-compliance. 

U.S. Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation	 

Tandy's information factory: an Interim solution for creating digital media 

At the new Tandy Technology Center, the heart of its r&d operations in Fort Worth, TX, Tandy is using a factory model for creating digital material. Photographs, from the equivalent of a conveyor belt, are digitized by the thousands by technicians specifically trained for that task. In another area, musicians and actors are available for recording whatever audio may be called for. Animators await orders.

Tandy hopes the multimedia factory will reduce the cost of media creation by an order of magnitude. As this library, or pool, of digital information is developed, the authors can call upon whichever elements are necessary for the creation of content.

Creating TandyVision. Tandy's interactive multimedia kiosk, TandyVision, is being created at the factory. Thousands of catalog images and product descriptions are being digitized and included in a point-of-sale kiosk that will be placed in every Radio Shack in the country. Tandy is considering making its factory available to developers, or at least sharing with the developer community their plans for building such an operation. 

Full-time producers of multimedia titles or large companies such as Tandy, which are trying to jumpstart a market, have no trouble justifying the purchase of production equipment. But what about the guy who has a hot content idea but no equipment or experience? 

Starting on April 23, an outfit called Graphix Zone is opening a Creator Center -- a studio containing a range of production equipment and staffed with experienced consultants -- in Irvine, CA. There, would-be producers will be able to rent studio time for $40-50 per hour. Graphix Zone will also conduct day-long training sessions for would-be producers. If the first Center proves popular, Graphix Zone will open others around the nation.

Good idea, but not new 

It's a good idea. Creative specialists, like graphic designers, can easily bill studio time back to the client (with a markup along the way) but they cannot readily bill for the use of equipment that they own. Clients expect that to be part of the basic fee; the result is a real disincentive to investment. 

It is not, however, a new idea. Back in 1986, Lightspeed had a very fancy and expensive system for graphic and package design. But few designers bought it because there was no obvious way to recover the investment. ("Better artistic productivity" didn't cut much ice with the bankers.) So Lightspeed opened a series of Access Studios, with equipment and staff and training sessions.

They did pretty well for a year or two. Then the desktop publishing revolution came along to put a design system on everybody's desk and nobody needed Lightspeed or the Access Centers any more. We think the same phenomenon will happen in multimedia (and in fact may be in the process of happening with Digital F/X's studio model -- see Vol. 1, No. 4, p. 13). There is no good, cheap, universal desktop production machine -- yet. Till there is, renting time in a studio is one way to solve the chicken-egg problem. 

The ability to cut the cost of multimedia creation can only help to build a bigger multimedia market, and it will certainly prove invaluable to creative professionals who want to archive digital imagery and businesses that wish to move a giant step closer to the paperless multimedia office. Will it create a new market for consumer titles and devices too? That's a little more dubious.

David Baron, Peter Dyson   

A tremendous blossoming

A newly published report from Insight Research Corp. in Livingston, NJ -- called Multimedia Computing & the Network: Applications and Telecommunications 1992-1997 -- finds that in five years, 77 percent of all desktop, educational and industrial pcs or workstations will have some communications capabilities. "The network," says the executive summary, "will function as a catalyst; it will stimulate multimedia usage among users -- and thereby increase communications traffic." 

Interest and investment in digital communication is in the midst of a tremendous blossoming, but it could be snuffed by the kind of restrictive legislation proposed by the FBI. Here are just a few relevent news items from the past month or so:

	IBM Corp., Northern Telecom and Pacific Bell announced an alliance to research and field-test telecommunications network applications to speed up the creation of "Information Age services" such as teleconferencing and telecommuting. The idea is long-term evolution of the network, coupled with near-term creation of applications. 

	A new clearinghouse for miniaturized computer technologies was formed by SRI International in Menlo Park, CA, called the Pocket Intelligence Forum. The program monitors and provides information on the technologies, applications and markets of so-called "pocket intelligence products" such as notebook, hand-held, palmtop and pen-top computers, and "related emerging devices." The forum will also monitor peripherals and software that support the emerging market, such as wireless communication and smart cards. 

	A recent study by the Information Industries Group of Booz, Allen, & Hamilton estimated that the number of cellular data subscribers in the U.S. will reach 13 million by the year 2000.

	Japan's Ministries of Finance and Posts & Telecommunication are starting a major project to develop next-generation telecommunications equipment, and intend to fund major Japanese electronics firms with $1.2 billion to do so.

	Dow Jones & Co. and Nynex Corp. have agreed to develop and jointly test a prototype service which would allow Dow Jones to transmit video programming and information over the Nynex phone network. 

	Motorola Inc. announced that it would open the protocols used in its ARDIS nationwide radio data network, to spur the adoption of wireless data communication by mobile workers and allow third-party vendors to manufacture ARDIS-compatible terminals and/or modem devices. (ARDIS is a partnership between IBM and Motorola and the largest wireless data network in the country, covering 80 percent of the population and more than 90 percent of the business activity in the U.S.) 

	ARDIS itself announced a new service, in conjunction with a firm called Business Partner Solutions, that will allow application software vendors to integrate wireless data technology into their existing products easily and cheaply. 

	Motorola also opened several key over-the-air protocols for use on shared systems as a catalyst to market growth. The protocols are available through a royalty-free license to manufacturers who wish to provide radio modems. The protocols are already selected as a standard by ARDIS (no surprise there), Bell-ARDIS in Canada, Deutsche Bundespost in Germany and Hutchison Mobile Data Ltd. in the U.K.

Denise Caruso 

News

SimGraphics does live animation

'Mario in Real Time' shows off new software toolkit 

If you went to the Consumer Electronics Show in January, you may have wondered how on earth Nintendo got a 3d, on-screen version of Mario to chat with the crowd at its booth. Then again, it looked so natural you may not have even thought twice about it.

What you were seeing, rather surprisingly, was not a Nintendo product at all -- it was a real-time character animation system by SimGraphics Engineering Corp. of Pasadena, CA.

Though it is hardly ever given credit for doing so, SimGraphics is the company that actually wrote the Unix software drivers for VPL Research's Data Glove that launched the "virtual reality" phenomenon. It also invented and sells the 3d "Flying Mouse" that's part of the real-time animation system and is used to navigate through other 3d software applications.

New technology for theme parks

SimGraphics's latest foray into real-time animation may have an equally revolutionary effect on a new but potentially explosive market for theme parks and other location-based entertainment attractions -- and maybe even for film and tv broadcast as well. (There are many projects under way along these lines that are really quite remarkable in scope. We hope to report on them soon.)

In fact, the system was so interesting that SimGraphics vice president Steve Glenn says Nintendo's public relations execs asked SimGraphics not to give out film clips about the system at the show -- they were afraid it would get more attention than Mario. 

Called PAS, for Performance Animation System, Glenn says the system is a software toolkit for creating real-time character animation applications. PAS supports what Glenn calls "real-time morphing," first developed by electronic puppeteers deGraf/Wahrman. SimGraphics, however, is first to drive face animation using an operator's actual face movement, and to provide a toolkit for it. 

Morphing facial expressions

Morphing has recently entered the vernacular outside the computer graphics community because of Michael Jackson's recent video which "morphs" between various dancers, giving the illusion that their faces are actually melting and changing into one another.

But at the summer CES show, the morphing was between different expressions on one character's face, not between different faces. And was done live, on the spot, not in a computer graphics studio. At the next CES show, an improved version of the MIRT (Mario in Real Time) software will allow Mario to morph into various Nintendo products.

Here are the components of the system SimGraphics used for Nintendo's pavilion at CES:

	A "Waldo"(the trademarked term for this particular kind of facial armature) consisting of eight digital encoders, linked to plastic cups and then to the operator's face: two on the forehead, two on jaws, two on the upper lip, one on the chin and one on the lower lip (the system can support 12 sensors); two joysticks, a 3d mouse (for head motion tracking) and a foot pedal for eye motion. 

	Silicon Graphics 420 VGX workstation for data interpolation and image generation, using MIRT designed by SimGraphics using PAS.

	Graphics databases in Wavefront format developed by Rhythm & Hues using line art from Nintendo. The databases include 15 different morph targets -- i.e., neutral, angry, happy, sad, surprised -- including mouth phonemes. 

The man behind the curtain. An actor wore the Waldo (created by animatronics expert Rick Lazzarini of the Character Shop in Burbank, his first computer animation job) that tracked his eyebrow, cheek, head, chin and lip movements, and allowed him to control Mario's corresponding features. 

The Waldo's sensors tracked the actor's facial movements and mouth phonemes, generating data that was collected and interpreted by SimGraphics' software. That data was then projected in full 3d color onto a large screen in the Nintendo pavilion.

"Audience interaction stations" in the Nintendo booth were equipped with monitors and microphones so the actor could observe crowd reaction, and hear and ask questions. The result? Super Mario "himself," yukking it up with the audience and looking as "real" as a character can look on screen. The closest analogy is chatting up Mickey Mouse while walking around at Disneyland, but the giant Mickeys can't move their faces. PAS's effects are actually more realistic. 

Realism -- and retakes

Even Pixar's fabulous animated baby in Tin Toy looks computer-generated and decidedly unrealistic, and Glenn says there are many reasons why. One, he says, is that frame-by-frame animation either creates each frame separately, or uses key frames --starting a character's movement here, marking that you want it to end there, and letting the computer draw and link the frames in-between -- or creates rules and algorithms that create movement. 

In any case, it's very time consuming and expensive -- and the result is movement that doesn't look very realistic. You can't "direct" it, in the auteur sense, either -- ask Pixar how hard and expensive it is to keep programming a certain scene over and over again for emotional impact. This electronic version of the "retake" adds an enormous amount of time and expense to a process that is already grueling. 

PAS allows all of these things --realistic movement (since it is actually real movement), direction and cost-effective retakes. You don't like how it looks? Adjust a sensor, maybe, and have the actor do it again. 

A 'first' worth noting

Despite how easy PAS makes computer animation look, this is obviously not yet a desktop technology. The SGI workstation alone, required for the high-powered graphics crunching, is a cool $120,000 (though Glenn says SimGraphics is in the process of porting the software to a specially optimized version of SGI's Indigo Elan). 

Using PAS, SimGraphics will custom-develop runtime character animation applications. Developing an application (pre-production) costs anywhere from $80,000 to $100,000, including database development and configuration costs. Production costs include buying or leasing the SGI hardware, specialized hardware required by PAS (like Waldo) and a/v equipment. 

Not just theme parks

Because it is both more cost effective and provides palpably improved realism, Glenn believes that PAS has great potential for animating characters in interactive multimedia and video games, as well as for film and tv. 

Tv production companies, trade show producers, rock band managers and theme parks have all contacted the company. "We've even had bids on a couple of projects that would involve permanent installations at a site like a stadium or a very large store," says Glenn. 

And despite its high cost today, it's clear that products like PAS will only get cheaper as time goes on. The only thing that's real about virtual reality today is that many, many companies -- including U.S. movie studios and oodles of Japanese firms -- are investing serious amounts of money in the technology for location-based entertainment. 

As these systems congeal over time, just like everything else they will get cheaper. And eventually, maybe, we'll have vr stations at home just as we have component stereos set up today. In any case, the animation system that SimGraphics has invented today is bound to go down in the history discs as one of those "firsts" worth noting.

Denise Caruso  

The convergence emerges

Sharp and Apple join forces for first PDA

In yet another signal that the lines between the personal computer and consumer electronics industries will continue to blur, Apple and Sharp Corp. announced in late March that they will be partners in developing the first Personal Digital Assistant (pda) in the category of personal information products. 

Pdas -- a term coined by Apple chairman John Sculley in January to describe hand-held information devices -- will combine the best of consumer electronics' digital miniaturization technology and Apple's software expertise with graphical user interfaces. 

Personal, not consumer, electronics

The deal between Apple and Sharp is the first publicly announced evidence of what's known to be a veritable whirlwind of activity in Apple's newly formed Personal Electronics division. 

Apple is hoping that the new device, whatever it may be, will be a successful foray into what it calls the "personal electronics" market, as opposed to the more widely used term "consumer electronics." The upcoming crop of pdas are likely to be at least as widely adopted in business environments (and probably more) than they will be by down-home consumer types, especially at first.

Pdas also signal a new business strategy for Apple, a strategy that means abandoning its proprietary stance. Sculley has said that Apple will license its software technology in the 1990s -- following Microsoft Corp.'s successful model -- to a variety of manufacturers, most notably Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers.

Apple software beneath the screen

What that means, according to Sculley, is that beginning in 1993 you'll see Apple not only manufacturing Apple-label pdas, but Apple software driving non-Apple label devices --devices that will instead be sold under the hardware manufacturer's brand name. 

In an interview with a California business magazine last month, Sculley summed up his goal for this new open licensing strategy: "You'll see many different companies selling [pda-like] devices, but what we want is when you turn it on the first thing you see is an Apple logo."

Bearing both labels. According to a Sharp spokesman, the Apple-Sharp pda will be branded with both companies' labels. It is expected to make its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago in late May. 

Due in 1993, it will, according to industry reports, contain a risc processor, a HyperCard-like interface that is driven by a pen and include personal information applications such as an address book, to-do list and notebook. It will have a 3-by-5-inch lcd screen and an infrared link to the Macintosh serial port.

In what may or may not be unrelated news, Apple announced that starting this month Sharp's Japanese subsidiary, Sharp Systems Products, will be a distributor of Macintoshes in Japan.

Connie Guglielmo  

Good news for authors?

New board means affordable masters in any CD format 

Microboards, Inc., the Japanese company that sold Philips its first authoring system for cd-i, is now offering U.S. authors what it says is the first multimedia interface board compatible with recordable cd units and/or storage devices and can deliver output in virtually all cd formats.

The $4,500 Witchcraft-S interface board, already available in Japan, uses an AT&T digital signal processor for data compression and decompression. A large unnamed Japanese company is preparing an mpeg chip for the Witchcraft board, which Microboards of America's general manager Craig Hanson says will be made available "shortly." Jpeg compression is already supported, he said. 

The making of the master. The software allows authors to create a master disc on site in virtually any compact disc format -- audio cd, cd-rom, cd-rom xa and Photocd, cd-i, CDTV and various computer game cd formats. 

Hanson says the company can provide a complete system -- which includes Microboards' Witchcraft-S interface board, a fast '486 pc clone, hard disk drive, digital audio tape (dat) player, a write-once compact disc unit, and authoring software for one cd format for $30,000. Each additional format is $5,000.

"When we did the initial systems for Philips, we recognized the cost of entry was really preclusive to a lot of people," says Hanson. "It was a specialized system that could do one thing and one thing only, and it cost a lot of money to do it. So we decided to go with an architecture that would allow all the cd formats to be dealt with using the same hardware, but with different software."

Hanson says MBI is getting authoring software from various sources: for cd-rom, it has a deal with Dataware Technologies of Cambridge, MA, to distribute and co-develop authoring-retrieval software products; for audio cd, it's working with New York-based Gotham Audio. And it's working with two very big names -- though he won't announce who they are -- on authoring software for Photocd and cd-rom xa formats. 

Better on the Macintosh

Veteran interactive producers say the Witchcraft-S system sounds good for the price, but they wonder how successful the company can be with a pc-based product in an authoring market dominated by Macintoshes.

"The problem is that most developers have already adopted the Mac not the pc, for authoring because of their graphical capability," said one. 

Hanson says that Microboards isn't planning to make a NuBus version of the Witchcraft board for the Macintosh, despite the market's proclivity. MBI's early authoring systems, he says, were in vme (the operating system for Digital Equipment's minicomputers) or dos.

Microboards, Inc., is headquartered in Funabashi City, Japan. Microboards of America is located in Carver, MN.

Denise Caruso  

CableLabs tunes in computer industry

Conference hits all the topics from image compression to ADSL

The fact that cable tv and computer industries will overlap one day because of digital technology has not escaped the notice of, well, cable tv and computer companies. 

At the first of an ongoing series of dialog, some of the country's leading cable tv and computer companies, such as Apple, IBM and C-Cube Microsystems, met privately to talk about "mutual interests" -- namely how digital technology will affect what kinds of information and the way information may be transmitted over broadband networks.

Sponsored by CableLabs (Cable Television Laboratories Inc.), an r&d consortium of cable tv companies based in Boulder, CO, the conference brought together leaders in both industries. 

Among the topics addressed were image compression, with C-Cube giving a briefing on its work with jpeg and mpeg compression technologies; audio compression, with Dolby Laboratories demonstrating its five-channel surround sound digital audio system; and very large-scale integrated circuits, with LSI Logic Inc. presenting a status report on its vlsi chip technology.

According to CableLabs, the conference was a first step in helping cable tv companies, which are interested in providing non-entertainment video such as information and data services over the cable network, establish working relationships with the computer industry. 

Other presentations included Hughes Network Systems discussing how digital technology will change satellite communications, while Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) discussed how telecommunication companies may be able to transmit video using two new networking technologies: asymmetrical digital subscriber lines (adsl) and high-speed digital transcriber line (hdsl) technologies (see story at right).

No deaf ears

Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, set the stage with a presentation about building a national public network based on digital technology, about open platforms to encourage innovative new applications, and about how the phone network could be changed through isdn. "I invited an inquiry about whether this could be done via cable," he said. 

While he wasn't preaching to the converted, Kapor said his speech did not fall on deaf ears. "These ideas were pretty much new to the people there, but there was a lot of genuine interest," he said. "I got a number of people interested based on the follow-up discussions and meetings that came out of it." 

Connie Guglielmo  

More ways to milk old copper wire

Bellcore says ADSL enables multimedia transmission over standard phone lines

It appears there is more than one way to eke every last drop of performance out of those good ol' standard copper telephone wires. Charles Judice, executive director of Bell Communications Research (Bellcore), recently told an audience in San Francisco of yet another new telephony platform called adsl (asymmetrical digital subscriber line).

Judice says adsl technology will allow an ordinary pair of copper telephone lines to deliver "vcr-quality" compressed digital motion video, plus audio, through telephone central offices to phone customers miles away. Via digital signal processors at each end of the phone line, adsl connects an individual phone subscriber with the central office. Adsl supports data transmission at 1.5 megabits per second from the central office to the subscriber in addition to the usual two-way telephone voice capability. A 16k-bit-per-second data channel connects the customer's site back to the central office. 

He claims the return datastream, though slow relative to the multimedia channel, is as fast as or faster than dial-up modems. In addition, it permits keyboard and mouse input, for example, to be sent easily in real time. Adsl is called "asymmetrical" because of this imbalance between the data channel capacity to and from the central office. 

According to Judice, adsl-capable lines will be able to transmit any multimedia format that can be read at today's standard cd-rom xa data transfer rate (interleaved audio and mpeg video, for example), over standard copper phone wires to a local phone subscriber from a central multimedia file server. 

Yet another interim step? Like isdn and hdsl (high bit-rate digital subscriber line), adsl is conceived as an interim step before universal fiber-optic cabling. 

Adsl could permit customers to interact with multimedia databases as if they were using a local compact disc.

Unlike its isdn and hdsl cousins, however, adsl is optimized to support dial-up interactive access to centralized multimedia libraries storing full-screen, full-motion video such as those in development at the Library of Congress (see Briefs, p. 17). Isdn and hdsl support symmetrical two-way communication at lower speeds than the fast adsl channel, but faster than the slow upstream adsl channel. 

When and if installed by telephone operating companies, adsl could permit customers to interact with multimedia databases as if they were using a local compact disc, according to Judice. The adsl advantage is in the interactivity and in the use of existing phone lines.

A laundry list of why nots. One major disadvantage is that by competing with isdn and hdsl, adsl sets up the potential for major incompatibilities. Another is that while it will not require replacing copper wire, adsl will require installation of digital signal processing devices, new digital switches, data decompression hardware and specialized digital multimedia file servers. To some, this is a laundry list of expensive reasons why it makes more sense to wait and invest in fiber optics and its related equipment. 

Even with adequate data transfer speeds, achieving the interactive potential of a switched (dial-up) network requires overcoming disc (or disk) contention and other bottlenecks -- not the least of which are digital switches capable of carrying all that traffic at once. 

The architecture of file servers for such central libraries is also still being designed, Judice acknowledged. The result will certainly be one determinant of whether adsl can compete with "hard" media such as cd-rom and with "soft" media such as direct broadcast satellite and expanded capacity fiber-optic cable tv networks. 

Switched digital video

Bellcore expects that mpeg chips will be used to compress and decompress the motion video content. In his demonstration in San Francisco, Judice showed motion video decompressed with the mpeg algorithm at 1.3 megabits per second, simulating its "vcr-like" appearance over adsl. In any case, much of the hardware to do all of this is still in the prototype stages, so don't expect North America to be adsl-capable overnight.

What Bellcore bills as the first trial of digital video over a switched twisted-pair phone network is slated to begin in the fall of 1993 as Project Edison. This effort will involve Bellcore, a yet-unamed New Jersey school district, Bell Atlantic, AT&T and others. The concept will be to give approximately 100 students in grades eight and nine access at home to multimedia content integral to their schoolwork. 

Bernard Banet  

Briefs

Will SkyPix make its launch this time? 

If timing is everything, then SkyPix Corp. must be feeling pretty beleaguered. Just a few days before the digital satellite broadcast television system was scheduled to host its first media briefing at the SkyPix Earth Station in Oxford, CT, a story broke about a grand jury investigation and investor revolt involving SkyPix chairman Fred Greenberg. The news seemed to place SkyPix's long-awaited April launch firmly in mid-air. 

The company's plans for the service are ambitious to say the least: 80 channels that the company says will deliver more than 57,000 hours a month of all-digital programming; 200 movies and special events per day, eight superstations, two news and children's channels.

Home center. In addition to the programming benefits that the system hopes to provide, the company has designed SkyPix to be the center of home communications. The receiver box is designed to enable messages to be passed between SkyPix subscribers, with a port to connect a pc and printer.

But investors who have contributed some $44 million to the system's startup are beginning to wonder when the future is going to arrive. The launch is a year late and according to reports, some critical problems -- such as who is making and delivering the decoder chips and tv-top boxes -- are apparently not yet solved.

Library of Congress opens multimedia demo center

In late March, the so-called Atrium Project -- a new multimillion dollar demonstration center for multimedia and educational technologies in the atrium of the Library of Congress building -- opened its doors to the public. Already a steady stream of vips are visiting the center to sample its wares.

It contains 29 "interactive workstations," typically a pc with a videodisc or cd-rom drive attached, or a cd-i player, capable of demonstrating more than 200 applications on subjects from foreign languages to management training.

Librarian of Congress James Billington says the National Demonstration Center for Interactive Information Technologies (also known as the National Demonstration Lab, or NDL) will prevent the Library from becoming a "mausoleum of past culture." Part of how it hopes to do so is by making the Library's collections more widely available and accessible.

In 1989, the Library of Congress launched the American Memory Project, its first significant move toward using advanced electronic storage methods to put the Library's collections in a form that could be transmitted cross-country.

Toward that end, NDL is now planning a project with GTE Corp. to test transmission of collections over fiber -- both to aid the transferral of collections onto disc, and to make it easier for global citizens to gain access to the Library's resources. (Librarians who want to participate in this project should contact the NDL's director, Jacqueline Hess.)

In addition to the demo center, the Library of Congress has founded a Research Consortium to explore the effective use of interactive media in education. Members include the American Film Institute, the American Federation of Teachers and a lineup of universities including Carnegie Mellon and MIT. 

NDL has received no public monies, relying instead on private and corporate funds, equipment and software via the Atrium Group. Members include Microsoft, Digital Equipment, GTE, IBM, Nynex, Informix, Philips and Sun Microsystems.

IMA tackles the 'rights stuff'

Technology challenges aside, one of the most difficult problems facing multimedia producers has to do with rights -- figuring out who owns what, how to acquire rights to content and how to license multimedia presentations for distribution and use. 

Deciding to do something about the rights conundrum, the Interactive Multimedia Association (IMA), the five-year-old international trade association for the multimedia industry, has launched an Intellectual Property Task Force. 

Like the IMA Compatibility Project, which made recommendations on cross-platform multimedia standards, the Intellectual Property Task Force will explore rights issues from the viewpoint of content owners, multimedia developers and publishers, libraries and other users' groups and put together a framework for what the IMA calls a "rational licensing environment" that will facilitate "the efficient, confident use of all multimedia applications and environments."

The IMA Task Force is made up of five groups. Licensing will develop a handbook that discusses all the issues in acquiring rights to content, as well as in licensing multimedia for distribution. The handbook will also include legally sound definitions, sample contracts, suggested language for contracts, a resource directory, case studies and bibliographic references. 

The other groups include Technical Safeguards, which will look at encryption of multimedia products and other standards; Publishing and Library Systems, which will develop standards and policies for using multimedia products in distributed networked environments; Collectives, which will discuss ways agents help locate content material and how they should negotiate licenses to address multimedia; and Legal and Policy Issues, which will report on the state of the law and legal controversies that could affect multimedia.

According to Brian Kahin, chair of the IMA Task Force on Intellectual Property, it will take the groups about one year to research, discuss and make recommendations. If you're interested in finding out more about the task force or participating in one of the task force groups, contact Kahin at (617) 864-6606. 

Loan guarantees for ed-sat program

Montana Senator Conrad Burns, an avid supporter of a new national telecommunications infrastructure, as well as of telecommuting and other progressive measures, wants to improve distance learning to all children, regardless of economic proclivity, with S. 2377, called the "Educational Satellite Loan Guarantee Program."

The idea is to acquire a dedicated educational satellite system by offering loan guarantees to a non-federal, non-profit public corporation to buy or lease a dedicated system.

Burns claimed a dedicated educational satellite would help lower two barriers to distance learning. "First, it will insure instructional programmers that they will be able to obtain affordable satellite transmission time without risk of preemption by commercial users," he said. "Second, it will allow educators using the programming to have one dish focused on one satellite off which they can receive at least 24 channels of instructional programming every hour of the school day."

Interactive technologies and distance learning, as well as the retrieval of information archives from such repositories as the Library of Congress, have the potential to revolutionize the educational process, especially in poor rural and inner city schools without access to adequate funding.

Microsoft to use fractal in titles

We reported in January that fractal image compression was gaining new respect in the industry. Confirmation of this comes from Microsoft Multimedia Publishing Group's director of product development, Greg Riker, and Iterated Systems' co-president, Michael Barnsley. They have announced that "at least one" forthcoming Microsoft multimedia title will utilize Iterated Systems' fractal still-image compression technology, under a non-exclusive licensing agreement. 

Riker says that for its multimedia titles, Microsoft looked for a methodology that can perform image decompression in software only, yet can display the pictures quickly. Also required were high compression ratios, enabling more images to be packed onto a compact disc, and good image quality. Jan Ozer, Iterated's vice president of marketing and sales, indicated that the fractal approach not only met these criteria but bested the competing solutions, including jpeg products, on each count.

Merger mania in the tools business

Forming what one company executive called the ''largest multimedia toll maker,'' low-end multimedia software developer MacroMindParacomp and high-end developer Authorware officially merged as of March 31.

Tim Mott, MacroMindParacomp president and CEO, will take over as chariman and CEO of the newly renamed Macromedia. Authorware president and CEO Bud Colligan takes on the job of president and COO. The two companies will have combined worldwide staff of between 170 to 180 people.

While financial details of the agreement were not disclosed, the companies said they had combined earnings of about $25 million in 1991 -- with Authorware accounting for about $12 million. Widespread industry speculation is that the deal was designed to give both privately-held companies an extra boost in their effort to go public, which is expected to happen soon (they are, in fact, in their ''quiet period'' now).

Mott denied that the deal was IPO driven. ''There were no considerations like that that drove this deal,'' says Mott. ''This merger is about being positioned for the long term.''

I/O
Reader Respond

A toolmaker asks: Is technology killing creativity?

Rudy Burger is a consultant and president of Savitar Inc. in San Francisco, makers of color imaging software.

Since the beginning of civilization, progress in every phase of society has been achieved through the division of labor. Specialization has allowed us to work on a task while taking advantage of a huge superstructure of previous creative output. 

Painters need only to concern themselves with the application of paint onto canvas to create their desired effect -- they don't need to know how paint is made, or, indeed, to make their own paint. A mathematician working through an equation on a pad of paper is made more productive by being able to take advantage of the pencil-making skills of others. A photographer may choose to become an expert in Silver Halide chemistry, but will probably find that acquiring this expertise distracts him or her from the process of taking pictures thus reduces his photographic creativity and productivity, and so on. . . .

Focus on the essence. The creative process is best served if we are free to focus our energies on the essence of the problem without worrying about the tools of our trade. 

Unfortunately, the ubiquitous desktop computer has recently been moving the process in the other direction. One of the earliest uses of desktop computers was as a sophisticated typewriter. The first word processing programs on the IBM PC were unbelievably crude by today's standards. However, in their crudity lurked an advantage:  making error correction easier, for example, provided genuine productivity gains over using the typewriter. By enabling the writer to worry less about making a mistake, he or she was free to focus more on creative content. 

In contrast, today we have the perfectly typeset office memo. Is a write more creative when  concerned about the kerning of a document? 

The Japanese approach is illuminating: Although as a nation they are extremely style-conscious, Japanese spend almost no time at all making internal corporate documents look pretty. Content is emphasized over style, thus Japanese corporate presentations often use materials that look very crude in comparison to their slick U.S. counterparts. 

Medium more than message

Unfortunately, this trend of emphasizing the medium more than the message is getting worse as the desktop "productivity" tools become more powerful. A presentation ten years ago might have involved a typed handout and possibly some overhead transparencies. If slides were needed they would be produced out of house. 

The same executive is likely to be found today creating the presentation in MacroMind Director -- a process that will take a week rather than the few hours that the preparation would have previously taken. Of course, the extra time is usually justified on the basis of the extra impact and communication power of the new medium. Whereas it unquestionably true that is a more powerful communication medium than type, I am increasingly beginning to question if the time taken with the tools (and therefore not the message) is worth it.

My main concern with "multimedia" is that many are being seduced into the medium but few are emerging as more creative and productive.

Unfortunately, the current trend seems to be for previously very creative individuals to become obsessed by the medium, by the tools. This results in artists seemingly more interested in which version of the Macintosh operating system they should be using rather than showing off their enhanced creative output. 

Multimedia is a black hole for creative individuals. Because it is by definition a medium that requires the creator to be skillful in many disciplines, it reduces creative output to the lowest common denominator of creative talent. 

Surely we cannot expect our artists of the future all to excel in video production, music composition, writing, graphic design, etc. And yet this is what is required by placing such tools on a "personal computer." 

Will creative individuals be able to enhance their creativity by focusing on the inevitable production issues inherent in multimedia creation? Will office workers have the discipline to use only the software tools they need to communicate their message most efficiently?

I believe the answer is no. Multimedia tools, like the desktop publishing tools before them, are best left in the production domain, thus enabling the "message initiators" to channel their creative energies where they belong -- into creating, not producing or editing.

Rudy Burger 

Mediascape

The Staggering Scope of The Internet

A thicket of networks wound 'round the globe

Though somewhat incomprehensible to non-users, the Internet is really nothing more than a global thicket of interconnected computer networks. 

Described as "the Matrix" by science fiction writer William Gibson, the Internet is reshaping the world by changing the way people communicate. Ultimately it may alter the way all of us work, with whom we share our ideas and time, and even how we play. 

Today the most significant contribution of the Internet has been its social impact on scientists, students, teachers and researchers. It has created communities of people entirely unconnected from geographic boundaries. 

For example, computer designers in Israel leave elaborate simulations of new chips running on their workstations when they leave work at night. When they return, the simulations are automatically rolled over the Internet around the globe, first to their colleagues' machines in Japan, then as the sun rises, to the computers of another research group in the United States.

A simple mechanism

The Internet was created by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as a computer science experiment in the late 1960s, starting as a simple mechanism for sharing data, utilizing remote computers and exchanging electronic mail.

ARPAnet was broken in two components that became the twin backbones of the network -- the military, called Milnet, and the non-military, called NSFnet. The National Science Foundation managed NSFnet in 1988 and 1989. Since then, the original ARPAnet network --which connected a handful of minicomputers at universities, corporate research laboratories and military bases -- has been retired and subsumed in a vast collection of networks. There are thousands, but no one is actually sure how many, that reach around the world from the former Soviet Union to Singapore. 

The formation of a metanetwork

The Internet is defined by a group of computer networks that share a common set of communications protocols (computer software and hardware) -- known as tcp/ip, for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol --that were first proposed by ARPAnet pioneer Robert Kahn and computer scientist Vincent Cerf in 1974. 

The Internet is actually made up of a backbone of computers connected by a mix of leased T1 phone lines and faster T3 (45 megabits per second) backbone links over fiber optic cables. (T3 lines are now being put in place by Advanced Networks & Services (ANS), an IBM-MCI non-profit joint venture.) These are generally Digital Equipment Corp. minicomputers, Sun workstations and specially designed communications computers called routers and hubs.

In turn, thousands of separate networks, local-area networks and isolated computers connected by dial-up telephone lines, hang off the main backbones like branches off the trunk of a tree. There are also connection points to networks that speak different protocols or "languages" than tcp/ip but are connected through software and hardware interfaces called protocol converters. The result is a metanetwork that connects tens of thousands of even smaller networks.

Today, the Internet has at least two to three million users, but some estimates run as high as ten million. It is impossible to conduct an accurate census because some remarkably large networks are represented as a single node in the Internet. For example, both IBM Corp.'s Vnet node and Digital Equipment's Easynet node support several hundred thousand users each.

An open standard. Tcp/ip protocols are supported by dozens of computer manufacturers and software publishers. As a result, tcp/ip has been adopted internationally. It is also used widely in private corporate networks that are detached from the Internet; many proprietary networks now also have connections or "gateways" to the Internet.

The most striking aspect of the tcp/ip protocols is that they are distributed -- there is no one central point of control. This has meant that the network is unpredictable (links occasionally disappear without notice) but it has also created a remarkably robust web of systems that is constantly growing and changing. 

Using the tcp/ip protocols, data is sent over the Internet as small variable-sized "packets" that may range in size from several words to several pages of information. Each packet is placed in a "digital" envelope so that different packets can be interwoven within the same data channel. Once they reach their destination the packets are reassembled into a complete document.

Branching out to UUCP

The Internet is interwoven with a number of other networks -- including the anarchic UUCP (Unix-to-Unix Copy Program) network connecting hundreds of thousands of computers that run the Unix operating system via dial-up phone lines. 

One of the largest UUCP networks is EUnet, or the European Unix Network, Europe's largest subscription-funded network, which since 1982 has focused on users in the research and development community. Operating in nearly every country from Iceland to Russia, and as far South as Tunisia, EUnet connects more than 2,500 networks and sites and has gateways to every major network in Europe.

The growth of the Internet has been dramatic, particularly in recent years as thousands of commercial customers have begun to join. While it is impossible to accurately gauge actual membership, one measure of growth is the accelerating rate of data packets traveling over the Internet backbone (see chart, p. 19). Not long ago, month-to-month data packet growth -- now well in excess of ten billion packets per month -- was increasing at the rate of 25 percent per month. 

From computing risks to the Grateful Dead

Electronic mail is still the biggest single use of the Internet, but it is by no means the fastest growing service that the network provides. In addition to network mail (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, or smtp), a huge volume of data flows everyday via another network service known as "ftp," or file transfer protocol. 

Electronic bookstore. Ftp works like an electronic bookstore or library, allowing users at one computer to enter the address of another user virtually anywhere in the Internet and browse through file directories until they find a document or program they want. Users can then transfer the file to their own computer at high speed. Ftp has opened up an immense world of free software. There are literally dozens and dozens of computers dedicated to making available the latest public domain and shareware Macintosh, pc and Unix software packages.

Thousands of conferences. Beyond ftp there is Usenet, a remarkably diverse array of computer conferences (about 3,000) that run on tens of thousands of computers around the globe. Planned and created by graduate students at the University of North Carolina and Duke in 1980, Usenet has gone through a number of revisions and is now accessible almost everywhere in the computer world. There are discussion groups on every subject imaginable, from the risks of computing technology to urban folklore, sexual variations and everything imaginable in between. Some of the groups, like rec.music.gdead (devoted to the Grateful Dead rock band) have literally become communities, linking thousands of people who share a common interest. 

In the Usenet world some groups are simply an uncontrolled electronic-stream-of-conciousness, while others are moderated by one or several members who serve as editors. In addition to Usenet, both the Internet and Bitnet, an academic network that is connected to the Internet, have extensive mailing lists that cover an equally broad list of topics. To join, it is only necessary for a network user to drop an electronic message to a particular network address; he or she is then automatically added to a mailing list.

Libraries and databases. One of the greatest potentials of the Internet is electronic libraries and commercial online databases. Several hundred libraries located in dozens of countries already have placed their catalogs on the Internet, but full-text databases are likely to emerge in the future. Already, through gateways it is possible to reach almost all of the existing databases such as Mead Data Corp.'s Nexis and Lexis and Dow Jones. 

And now a pilot project conducted by researchers at Apple Computer, Dow Jones and Thinking Machines Corp. has established a standard for information retrieval over the Internet. Known as the Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) it provides a standard interface and set of protocols for full-text retrieval from enormous computer databases. More than 200 WAIS databases are now accessible for free and a standards committee is now finishing work on a text retrieval standard known as Z39.50. (For more on the WAIS project, see Digital Media, Vol. 1, No. 9.) 

A simple mail connection. Moreover, it is possible to obtain a great deal of data with a simple mail connection to the Internet. "Listserv" programs running at many sites make it possible for an interactive retrieval process to take place via electronic mail. A user simply mails a query to a particular computer address and the system responds by first sending back a directory and then mailing any document requested.

Agents for browsing and retrieval. In the future, some computer scientists believe that it will be possible to devise software programs called "agents" that will automatically roam the Internet, browsing for information and retrieving it when it matches an owner's needs. One such agent -- "knowledge robot" (knowbot) --already exists. Vincent Cerf, now a researcher at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, has designed a program that systematically searches a variety of Internet "phonebooks" for an address and then mails back the information when it finds a match.

"Backyard" chats. Moreover, the Internet is no longer all research and science. A program that resides on hundreds of machines around the world called Internet Relay Chat (IRC) permits computer users to drop in on global conversations in real time. By typing at the keyboard it is possible to have an "over-the-fence" backyard chat with someone in Finland or France. Like the real-time chat areas on CompuServe or other online services, it is possible to switch "channels" and drop in on different conversations going on around the clock.

Virtual reality, today. In recent years, hundreds of fantasy role-playing games have sprung up on campus computers. Called muds, or multiuser dungeons-and-dragons, they permit a computer user connected via the Internet to use a command called Telnet to connect to the game-playing computer. Once connected, users can travel through a text-based fantasy game and modify the game to extend their own fantasy. Muds, as might be expected, have become an addiction for thousands of people. Some people now spend a significant part of each day in these "virtual worlds."

Since the original muds were designed by computer science students, it is not surprising that some of the games have interesting features. It is not unusual when traveling through these electronic mazes to run into "artificial intelligence," programs that mimic human behavior and can be engaged in keyboard conversations.

Publishing -- and pizza -- on demand. Finally, new services are constantly springing up. Several bookstores now permit Internet users to order books directly over the network. Publishing companies such as McGraw-Hill are experimenting with new ways of distributing textbooks over the Internet. 

Who knows where it will end? Some engineers at Sun Microsystems Inc. recently developed a program called "Pizzatool" that sends a pizza order over the Internet to a local pizza restaurant's fax machine.

Limits are being addressed

Despite its vast potential for supplying computer users with a cornucopia of information, the current Internet has several limitations. The most serious is that it is a classically "user-hostile" world for the computer novice. Most information can be gleaned only by those who are willing to master a complex series of cryptic commands.

But that is changing quickly. A range of new software programs designed to simplify interaction with the Internet are being created. Examples are Gopher, a network browser program on the Next Computer that permits users to look for information on the Internet as simply as if it were a file on their local hard disk. More recently, Performance Systems Inc. has begun offering custom software for retrieving information over the Internet. And Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development and president of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is helping fund the development of software that takes some of the complexity out of navigating the net.

John Markoff  

Getting on the 'net

If you can't get access to the Internet from work or school (until recently the two most common sites), it is now possible to get "on the net" in a number of different ways.

Mail gateways. In the past two years most commercial online services (but not Prodigy) have broken their isolation and begun to offer electronic mail gateways to the Internet. For example, if you are an MCI Mail subscriber, it is possible to send mail to someone anywhere on the Internet by simply entering his or her address on a special line in preparing your mail message. There is no extra fee for the service based on the rationale that if you can reach a larger audience you will send more e-mail messages.

At the same time the major online commercial services don't currently offer what is referred to as "full" Internet access. It is not possible to use commands such as "telnet" and "ftp" to connect directly to computers on the Internet.

For that, it is necessary to subscribe to any of a number of regional or private Internet providers. There are now dozens of "regionals" -- generally consortiums of colleges and universities, as well as public agencies and research centers. Depending on their guidelines, some regionals have begun selling their services to the general public.

Individual and corporate connections

Additionally a number of small private companies ranging from national providers such as Performance Systems Inc. to UUnet are offering individual and corporate connections to the Internet from either local or 800 dial-up numbers to full dial-up or leased-line connections. Performance offers a variety of services, starting with a simple mail connection. 

To have your own Internet node -- which is becoming a status symbol of sorts -- can cost as little as a local phone call to a "friendly" Unix computer that is willing to let your computer call it every day to send and receive mail. It can cost as much as $175 per month for a full-blown, dial-up Internet link. Using the Internet without a domain name (such as joedoe@xyz.com) can be a lot cheaper.

For those who want more limited (and lower cost) access, a number of smaller companies now offer individual connections to the Internet. In the Boston area the Software Tool and Die Works offers direct connections and mail for as little as $5 a month and $2 an hour of connect time. 

On the West Coast, Netcom in Santa Clara, CA, Anterior Technology in Menlo Park, CA, Portal in Cupertino, CA and the Well in Sausalito, CA offer various kinds of inexpensive connections to the Internet.

Commercial services. Nationally ANS has begun offering commercial services through a for-profit subsidiary called CO+RE. And in the future both AT&T and a number of the regional Bell Operating Companies are considering offering Internet services.

Moreover, new technology such as frame relay and Switched Multimegabit Data Service (smds) and new high-speed protocols such as the international synchronous optical network (sonet) standards are likely increasingly to blur the line between conventional telephone and Internet data networks in the future.

John Markoff 

The commercialization debate

In the future, the Internet is likely to serve as the foundation for an even larger and faster network that will reach into homes and businesses and carry digitized video and voice as well as data. 

Proposed as the National Research and Education Network (NREN) in 1988 by ARPAnet pioneer Robert Kahn and University of Pennsylvania computer scientist David Farber, the Federal Government has since committed $1.5 billion toward building a national high-speed backbone network capable of carrying data at rates above one gigabit per second. (Such a network will be able to send more than 156 copies each second of, say, the novel Moby Dick.)

Congressional backers such as Senator Albert Gore Jr. believe that the new network, when it is completed sometime this decade, will form the basis of a national data highway, which, by creating a new electronic marketplace, will revitalize economic growth in the information age.

A vast potential market

The new national data highway can serve as the conduit for a variety of consumer information services ranging from video-on-demand movies to catalog shopping and electronic classified advertising. Moreover, it would quickly become the backbone for virtually every kind of modern electronic commerce ranging from electronic data interchange.

Such a vast potential market hasn't escaped the attention of the largest telecommunications and computer companies. 

In 1987, the National Science Foundation issued an rfp (request for proposal) for a "next-generation" network that would support T1 speeds (1.5 megabits per second) and eventually T3 speeds (45 megabits). 

The project was granted to IBM and MCI, who formed an academic consortium called Advanced Networks & Services. IBM now has a special division trying to develop new network businesses in partnership with telecommunications, cable and publishing companies.

Since then, U.S. Sprint and a number of smaller companies have begun offering Internet services and the issue of commercialization or privatization of the Internet has become highly controversial.

Opening the gates

Internet access was once reserved for computer scientists, corporate researchers, college faculty and students. But in the late 1980s the National Science Foundation, which administers the backbone of the network, began a gradual process of privatization and commercialization. As a result, a number of commercial service providers have sprung up and more are on the horizon as data traffic increases and new electronic services spring up.

While almost everyone sees tremendous promise in commercialization of what began as a scientific and engineering experiment, the process has been slowed by a number of stumbling blocks. 

Redefining 'acceptable use.' NSF has a long-established "Acceptable Use Policy" that prohibits purely commercial traffic from flowing over the network; information carried by the backbone network must be for either research or educational purposes. While the policy has restricted outright commercial ventures on the network, in practice what has research and educational value has been broadly interpreted.

A second stumbling block has been the settlements issue. Since ANS took over management of the NSFnet backbone network in 1989, there has been a bitter dispute over how much private networks should pay for traffic that passes between gateways linking the regional and private networks to the backbone.

A number of the private Internet providers have banded together into a CIX (Commercial Internet Exchange) and are now negotiating a policy of settlements with ANS executives. 

John Markoff 

Events

TechNeeds 2000: Technologies and Customer Needs of the 21st Century
June 1-2, 1992, Chicago, IL
National Engineering Consortium
(312) 938-3500, fax (312) 938-8787

TechNeeds 2000 intends to take a broad and long-term look at which critical technologies will enable the framework for a National Telecommunications Infrastructure -- and how these technologies can be developed, implemented, managed and marketed.

Sessions will center on the key issues of emerging information age technologies, strategies for competitive advantage, the users of the year 2000, customers' information needs, and regulations and policies. 

Top executives from the industry's leading companies -- including Bellcore, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Ameritech, Northern Telecom, Motorola and Alcatel Network Systems -- will attend and participate, as will industry consultants and advanced technology users. 

Issues such as privacy, upgrading the telecommunications/information infrastructure, the convergence of computers and communications and standards and spectrum policy problems will be addressed. 

Last year, representatives from 17 Federal agencies ranging from the U.S. Army and the U.S. Secret Service to the U.S. National Bureau of Standards and the U.S. House of Representatives attended.

In technology sessions, laymen will assess key information technologies of the next decade, such as digital signal processors, wireless telephony, fiber optics, broadband isdn and interactive multimedia. 

Business sessions will include discussions about strategic partnerships for competitive advantage and restructuring business organizations for the 21st century. 

The National Engineering Consortium is a non-profit organization that sponsors annual forums for continuing education in the telecommunications and computer industries. 

Two additional NEC events, Cellular Technologies TechForum and Worldwide Personal Communications ComForum, will follow TechNeeds 2000, June 3-5. For more information contact ComForum, 303 East Wacker Drive, Suite 740, Chicago, IL 60601-5212.

Amy Johns