 
Photos: The Reader |
TOMORROWS TECHNOLOGY TODAY
Telefonica called The Reader to
make an appointment the other week to discuss how we could benefit from
their latest technology based services... and save money!
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so we
had the meeting. We have now thrown away our old answerphone which was
making some terrible noises and it's replaced by Telefonica's own automatic
service. We can now hear when a call is coming in when we are already on
the line to someone else; we can ask them to hold, or they will go onto
the answerphone enabling us to call them back, all on the same line, at
the same time. The answerphone service has our own message on it. They
have replaced our phones with the new pulse phones, that these services
require, at no charge and better still our bi-monthly service charge has
been reduced and we now have a guaranteed response time to fix any faults!
Some will say this is old hat as the service has been around for a while,
but it is just one simple example of how computer technology is making
more available for less, that many are not aware of and the facilities
offered are far more extensive than those just summarised.
Meanwhile, Tony Blair has made
an announcement that should frighten everyone who has anything with a computer
chip in it, from a video recorder, to a cars trip computer to, of course
a home or business PC. 'The year 2000 will bring a doomsday catastrophe
with it as old software code that was never envisaged to last as long as
it has done will not recognise the year 2,000, reverting back to 1900...
but the video recorder won't be able to find a programme transmitted at
20.00 hrs in 1900!' You think it won't effect you? Well one supermarket
chain has already encountered the problem when it asked its computer to
enter the sell buy date of a product that was 2,000. British Airways have
said they will not fly aircraft on the 1st January 2000 in case the rest
of the world's aviation environment has not solved the problem. So what
will happen to your PC?
Fortunately it seems that there is a very
simple test you can apply to find out if your machine is 2000 compatible
or not. We suggest you ask the writer of the next article to find out how
to do this. If you computer is not 2000 compatible it may not matter if
you are only using it for games and simple word processing. Any more than
this and my experience is that the machine is too old to run current applications.
The more serious problem is to found in
old applications that you are still using on current PC's and these will
need more than a phone call of advice to fix them. It may even be cheaper
to replace them.
We hope to have a much fuller explanation
next month on this subject.
This month we have asked an expert to
give you a glimpse of what he has seen is coming round the technology corner...
now!
ARRIVING NOW?
Cebit 98 is the largest technology show
in the world and is held in Hanover each year during March. Over 600,000
visitors and 7,000 plus exhibitors. The event is held in 26 halls and is
mind bogglingly large!
With a limited amount of time and resource,
it was not possible to cover all items exhibited. Hopefully, these notes
may assist in explaining some of the directions that the PC and Telecomms
industry is currently taking and products which will be available during
1998 and 1999.
HANDHELD DEVICES or POCKET PC's
With the industries constant drive to
provide more power in a smaller size machine Cebit 98 this year saw the
introduction of many hand held PC's.
In this category there are two main types
of device; hand held keyboard devices and hand held stylus systems. (The
stylus system receives its instructions by a 'pen' touching the screen)
All generating a fair amount of interest at the show with mixed receptions.
Originally the stylus type PC's where referred to as Palm PC's but now
the name is being used generically to describe a small PC system. We have
therefore chosen to differentiate between them as keyboard or stylus devices
to avoid confusion.
Keyboard Devices
The keyboard devices are akin to miniature
portable PC's running on Lithium or standard batteries with colour or mono
LCD Screens. Most run an operating system from Microsoft called Windows
CE. In essence this is a scaled down version of the all dominating Windows
95 Desktop Operating System. The systems vary in size, around approximately
20x10x3cm in general, weighing about 20oz. Some have PCMCIA card slots
(probably familiar to any Laptop user).
Stylus Devices
The stylus type systems are very small
(approximately 11cm x 7cm & weighing 6oz.) light and easy to use. They
have a small sensitive pad which allows you to write directly into them
using a special type of script language. The language takes about 2-3 days
to get used to. Once this has been accomplished though, it is relatively
easy and fast to use. Manufacturers claim they can store up to 6,000 Addresses,
about five years worth of appointments in the diary and up to 200 e-mail
messages.
Both types of device have met with mixed
receptions for a number of reasons. The keyboard devices are seen by some
as too small to type on and clumsy to use. In some cases their operating
system can be too rich in features for a simple hand held device for taking
notes, scheduling diaries and e-mail tasks. On the other hand the smaller
Palm PC's or stylus PC's have a very simplified interface, smaller construction
and an ease of use which many prefer for this type of task.
We expect to see the keyboard devices
improve over time as developers build more vertical market applications
for them.
All of the devices in this category link
up to a desktop PC by cable or infrared and will automatically synchronise
the data (diary, agenda, expenses, memo's etc.) between the PC and hand
held device.
One manufacturer with a keyboard device
determined to succeed over the stylus devices stands a good chance with
its recording features. This small device allows you to record a voice
memo without even opening the machine. Up to an hour's worth of voice memos
can easily be stored and then played back or sent immediately as e-mail
attachments. For the busy executive, they can plug the device back into
the office network and share their recordings with the rest of the staff
if they did not e-mail it directly.
As always there will be many heated debates
by techno's as to "what's hot and what's not" but it's highly probable
that both types of product will find their markets. At the moment it looks
like the simpler stylus devices provide excellent electronic pocket agenda,
diary and expense account features. The keyboard devices, once applications
arrive for them will provide a slightly larger format, but greater functionality.
MOBILE PHONES
Again, lighter, faster, smaller and greater
power. The new generation of Mobile phones are now coming out which can
store up to 8mb of data on tiny plug in chips the size of postage stamps.
With their infra red link ups, a digital camera can transmit an image directly
to these phones, then the phone can dial and send the image via e-mail
anywhere in the world. With this type of technology, the world will definitely
change. The disaster in Tiannemen Square brought home to many how faxes
and satellite up-links shrank the world allowing foreign correspondents
to release information to the western agencies. These new mobile phone
developments now place these powers in the hands of the consumer.
For businesses the applications are endless.
City maps and phone directories could be downloaded by phone call onto
a chip when required. More detailed share price services could be automatically
transmitted to your phone for you including in depth reports and analysis
documents. Roving sales men could receive product catalogues containing
thousands of product prices and updates automatically to their GSM phone
whenever the companies data files change. Or, you could send a photo of
son to his grandparents as you chat about his latest achievements.
With battery stand-by life increasing,
new graphical interfaces replacing existing text menus, the new phones
are becoming quite sophisticated.
DVD (Digital Video Disk or Digital Versatile
Disk)
DVD is a technology which will have a
large impact on consumer electronics as well as the business PC market.
For over 2 years DVD devices have been available in first Japan and then
America, but their adoption en masse has been slow. In a nut shell DVD
has suffered many problems due to differing standards being adopted by
the manufacturers. Remember the feud between Betamax and VHS?
So what is a DVD? For any one who's seen
a modern PC or hi-fi, you'll be more than familiar with CD's or CD-ROM
disks. If not, then these are disks which hold digital information in the
form of text, audio, video or graphics. Put all this together and you get
what we call Multi-Media.
A DVD disk can store as much as 26 times
more information than currently held on a CD ROM. For a techno-junkie this
translates as 17 giga bytes of data. Finally, enough storage for a full
length digital video movie! This seems to be one of the 'meccas' of the
entertainment industry. Because the movie is stored digitally, the studios
can do so much more with it. Not only the actual movie as currently seen
on a standard VHS Video tape, but also perhaps running commentaries, subtitles
in multiple languages (chosen from a menu), ability to freeze frame and
chose to view the scene from another angle and no doubt many other whiz
bang ideas.
With many studios excited about getting
into new markets (Warner promise 100 DVD Titles in Europe by the end of
1998) together with new ways to milk money from the archives, expect to
see new and old movies on DVD including original screen tests, interviews,
directors cuts, detailed documentation, images and what ever else the Marketing
departments can dream up. Expected price tags are about 25 US Dollars for
DVD films.
So DVD will finally blur the edges between
the TV, your Video and the PC.
There are still many technical issues
and standards to be ironed out by these manufacturers and don't forget,
the existing CD-ROM drive has taken nearly 10 years to get from a few thousand
drives and titles to its current market levels with 95% of new PC's being
equipped with them.
INTERNET
Net2Phone
Net2Phone have recently introduced further
developments of their Internet phone system. To date, communications over
the Internet using voice have required both PC's to be on and attached
to the Internet.
Net2Phone and IDC now have software that
enables you to place a call from your PC (using a sound card) over the
Internet, and out again to dial a standard phone. If the recipient is in,
they will answer and you can talk. If not hang up as normal. Net2Phone
can be found here.
Check the pricing carefully in terms of
your ISP (Internet service provider) charges + IDC costs. In some areas
the savings are enormous.
Training
Some areas highlighted for growth on the
Internet include on-line training. This is where, via the Internet, you
can join training and educational courses from your home PC, or for use
by large corporate companies for in-house use. Industry observers such
as IDC estimate that this area will grow by 85% annually over the next
5 years from its current European market value of $32 Million to over $700
million by the year 2002. With the current trends towards lower working
hours in Europe, there may well be a boom in 'feature rich' correspondence
training over the Internet.
SPEECH RECOGNITION
Another technology that many await eagerly,
yet seems to take a while to pass into our lives. In the 70's British Leyland
introduced a car that annoyed the hell out of many people with its synthesised
speech reminding us to 'please fasten your seat belt'. Now in the late
90's, speech recognition (you talk to the computer) is entering into the
market. (Some claim it's here now). Expect to see devices in the home that
can accept simple speech recognition tasks. The TV with a small wireless
microphone that can accept commands such as "TV, change to channel 5".
These technologies may touch our lives greatly as many people for the first
time ever can program their VCR's, and men get no excuse for not using
the washing machines!
It will be some time before small business
and home computer systems can accept the breadth of vocabulary that we
use in our day to day lives, but devices such as teller machines and information
service machines that work on a limited series of commands will soon be
common. With reference to bank teller machines, we may see tests carried
out in using both speech and voice recognition. The latter being where
a series of codes spoken are actually recognised and verified by wave patterns
as the owners, thus permitting transactions to be carried out.
In the meantime there are some good, but
not perfect, products on the market for the patient and techno-minded that
already allow you to talk to a PC and enter memo's and documents. Can't
type is no longer an excuse!
DIGITAL CAMERAS
In recent years companies such as Casio,
Nikon and Canon have all sold modest digital cameras that have provided
excellent picture quality and versatility for many applications. (We understand
that The Reader Newspaper hasn't had the need to process any films for
three months since they acquired a digital camera.) The show saw the introduction
of a lot of cloned cameras from Asian manufacturers which should now drive
down the prices even further.
Epson have already started to sell Printer
& Camera Packages for the home market which will have a fair impact
on the existing developers of film in the near future if they can keep
the cost of the inks and papers down.
The show has seen the introduction now
of the Digital SLR's from some manufacturers with optional lenses (fisheyes,
wide angle, etc) The prices on these are higher, but expect the type of
quality of a top of the range branded SLR product.
THE DESKTOP PC
This year will see the biggest change
in the standard PC since its birth in the 80's.
To date, the way information was transferred
within a PC was using something called the ISA bus. Whilst recent systems
have incorporated ISA and the newer PCI system, expect to see PCI only
systems in the future.
Anyone who has ever tried to add a number
of peripherals (printers, cameras, mice, pointing devices, scanners etc.)
to a PC will be familiar with the difficulties of this due to limited resources.
1998 will see the adoption and release of many new peripherals using a
technology called Universal Serial Bus (USB). This allows up to 127 devices
to be attached to a PC, according to the manufacturers with ease. USB support
has been with us for some years now in Windows 95, but its the peripherals
that are now entering the market place.
This may bring back memories for some
of the introduction of 'Plug and Play'. The technology that allows the
user to add a device to the PC, and the Operating System automatically
recognises and configures it for them. It soon became known as 'Plug and
Pray' by many!
The monitor
The traditional CRT Monitor will slowly
be replaced by superb LCD panels. Approx 6cm deep and with an excellent
picture clarity, these will revolutionise your desk space! The only thing
holding them back at the moment is the hefty price of approx. $2,000.
Discs
Intel are expected to announce the 400mhz
Pentium II chip before summer. A new diskette drive and disk was released
in January that stores up to 120mb (85 times as much as the existing 3.5"
diskette). In summer another format will be released that supports up to
200mb. Both of these drives are fully compatible with your old 3.5" diskettes.
Modems
For modems, 2 new technologies are competing
for dominance in this years market. Both run at 56k (the current de-facto
standard being 33.6k). One is from US Robotics called x2 and the other
K56Flex from Lucent and Rockwell. In late 1997 these manufacturers met
to agree a joint standard and a draft was drawn up and presented to the
ITU Standards body. This new standard will be called V.pcm so ensure that
any new modems support this before buying. Also ensure that your ISP (Internet
Service Provider) will support your new 'whiz bang' modem.
However, a recent pilot scheme in Singapore,
run by their local government found that, due to line noise problems on
their telephone systems, the average transfer rate was approximately only
40K instead of the expected 56K speed. It would be interesting to see the
performance over Telefonica's local system.
Graphics
New graphics cards are all AGP format
(Advanced Graphic Processor) with enhanced 3D drawing and rendering together
with faster games support. Towards the end of the year look out for dual
monitor PC's. You'll not get two people working on one PC, but you will
get two screens of data, commands and graphics on one PC!
WINDOWS 98
Windows 98 is currently being tested and
slated for release in summer 98. The operating system has many exciting
new changes, all of which are too numerous to mention in this Cebit 98
article!
For further information please contact
Simba Technologies on +34/971 718378 |
at 
Mallorca Online CEBIT-SPECIAL
