TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/102191/1021310.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 11.3 KB | 235 lines

                                                                                TECHNOLOGY, Page 80

The World on a Screen


Interactive multimedia could bring a universe of words, sounds
and pictures to our fingertips, but today's systems are still a
jumble

By PHILIP ELMER-DEWITT


    Some technologies seem fated to succeed. The telephone.
The automobile. The electronic computer. Each offered
advantages over its predecessors so compelling that failure, in
retrospect, seems almost unimaginable.

    Now the same aura of inevitability has attached itself, at
least in some circles, to a technology known as interactive
multimedia. It is a broad term -- and one that most certainly
needs a catchier moniker -- that encompasses a variety of
systems for bringing information, music, voice, animation,
photos and video images together on a screen in people's living
rooms and workplaces. Multimedia represents the coalescence of
three key communications technologies: television, personal
computers and laser storage systems like the videodisc and the
compact disc. These technologies are on a collision course, say
multimedia enthusiasts, and when they merge, life as we know it
will never be the same.

    As if to underscore those predictions, technology watchers
are being treated this month to an unprecedented burst of multi-
media-related activity. Last week representatives of more than
70 high-tech firms, led by Microsoft and Tandy, gathered at the
American Museum of Natural History in New York City to unveil
the Multimedia PC (MPC), a souped-up personal computer that can
play games, video and interactive programs stored on silver
discs that look like audio CDs. Prices start at $2,800 -- or
about $800 more than an ordinary PC. One week earlier, former
archrivals Apple and IBM revealed plans to start a joint
venture, Kaleida, charged with designing their own version of
multi media computers.

    This week the Dutch electronics giant Philips will unveil
its Compact Disc Interactive system, also called CD-I, a $1,000
computerized CD player that can be hooked up to a standard TV
set to play all manner of games and run interactive programs.
Five years in the making, the VCR-size unit joins CDTV, a
similar machine that was introduced by Commodore in January, and
CD-ROM, a system for playing CDs on Apple and IBM-compatible
personal computers. Even Nintendo has announced plans to attach
a compact-disc drive to the latest version of its video-game
machine. "After years of public relations hype," says David
Bunnell, publisher of a start-up magazine called NewMedia,
"multimedia finally is for real."

    Or is it? For all the hoopla and claims of inevitability,
interactive multimedia is still far from a sure thing. None of
the devices that have arrived in U.S. stores so far can be
called a hit. And the multiplicity of gadgets is sure to be
confusing to consumers. Every new technology has its growing
pains; the early years of the computer -- and even the
automobile -- were littered with setbacks, false starts and
skepticism. For multimedia, the road ahead may be even bumpier.

    No one doubts that the basic idea behind the technology is
a powerful one. Television has demonstrated an uncanny ability
to grab a viewer's attention, but it remains a quintessentially
passive medium. The personal computer is a highly interactive
tool for searching through vast quantities of data, but until
now it has been restricted largely to manipulating dry text and
numbers. And thanks to the popularity of laser-based media,
videodiscs and compact music discs have become the cheapest
method ever devised for storing information. The same shiny
Mylar CD that holds 72 minutes of crisp digital sound can be
used to store more than half a gigabyte of computer data --
roughly 300,000 pages of text -- and yet can be stamped out for
less than $1.

    Futurists describe the ultimate multimedia machine as a
device that would sit in an office, den or schoolroom and do all
the things today's media do -- play music, movies, games --
while also providing viewers with the functional equivalent of
a joy stick to pursue their own interests or needs. People could
buy discs on everything from the Civil War to the Persian Gulf
war, from child rearing to quantum physics, which would provide
words, sound and video pictures at the viewer's command.

    Want to know more about something you heard on the news?
A few clicks on an electronic mouse would call to the screen a
selection of wire-service stories, background articles and
reports from a library of videotapes. Need a quick briefing on
Einstein's general theory of relativity? A few more clicks would
retrieve not just the text of his writings but also charts,
films and computer simulations that would bring those words and
formulas to life.

    While today's machines offer aspects of the interactive
multimedia experience, none of them deliver anything close to
this vision of the future. Problems begin with the compact disc
as a storage device. Because CDs were designed to store music,
not pictures or computer information, their data-retrieval rates
are limited. Users find that there is often an annoying pause
while the CD drive fetches a new screenful of information --
giving the machines a sluggish quality that people used to the
furious pace of TV shows and video games may deem unacceptable.
"Let's face it," says Denise Caruso, editor of the newsletter
Digital Media, "the disc drives are just too slow."

    A bigger problem is that most of the competing devices are
incompatible. With the exception of the MPC, which has the
cooperation of a dozen hardware manufacturers, a disc purchased
to play on one company's machine will not play on the others.
This breeds the kind of confusion and consumer resistance that
characterized the early days of the computer and VCR industries.
Some analysts believe a multimedia shakeout is inevitable. Yet
there is widespread optimism in the computer and entertainment
camps that these problems will be solved, if not by the next
generation of CD players, then sometime in the not so distant
future when homes and offices begin to receive massive
quantities of digital information through their phone lines or
cable-TV systems.

    Meanwhile, a surprising number of companies are developing
programs to run on the current machines. Among them are
reference-book publishers like Britannica and Grolier, magazine
publishers like Time Warner and National Geographic, film
companies like Lucasfilm and Disney, electronics manufacturers
like Sony, Fu jitsu and NEC, as well as a long list of software
publishers.

    Today there are hundreds of multimedia videodiscs and CDs
for sale or in development. Most are fairly straightforward
elaborations of products already available as books or on
traditional computer disks. But some of them take advantage of
the power of the new media to achieve extraordinary results.
Among the best are a series of videodiscs from ABC News
InterActive that allow users to explore subjects like the AIDS
epidemic or the life of Martin Luther King Jr. by roaming though
film and video clips culled from ABC's extensive library of news
footage. In some cases, these clips are supplemented by printed
matter, so that someone interested in King's "I have a dream"
speech can not only see a film of the speech and read its text
but can also call up background information on everything from
the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to relevant Bible passages.

    But good interactive multimedia can be fiendishly
expensive to produce. Development costs for a typical title
start at a quarter-million dollars. IBM this week will unveil
the most ambitious -- and expensive -- multimedia project ever
attempted: an elaborate exploration of Columbus' world created
by former Hollywood filmmaker Robert Abel that took more than
a year and some $5 million to produce. Packed with 180 hours
worth of slickly polished text, art, music and video sequences
(among them an interview with one of the explorer's living
descendants), the program, which will sell for about $3,000,
takes pains to represent a wide variety of viewpoints, including
those of blacks and Native Americans.

    Multimedia programs like this are likely to be
enthusiastically received in America's schools, which for all
their complaints about financial problems seem to have plenty
of cash to spend on new educational technologies. The state of
Florida has contracted with ABC News and National Geographic to
develop multimedia programs on subjects ranging from the
environment to the cold war. This fall more than 500,000 Texas
schoolchildren began using a videodisc series, Optical Data
Corp.'s Windows on Science, in lieu of a standard textbook, as
their first formal introduction to science. William Clark,
president of Optical Data, argues that the multimedia approach
may be necessary to reach children raised on Sesame Street and
MTV. Says he: "We have to teach a literacy appropriate to the
times we live in."

    Some critics are not so sure. While conceding that
interactive multimedia may prove useful in helping students
visualize abstract concepts in physics or math, many fear that
the tools of multimedia will turn the traditional educational
experience into something more akin to television. Author Steven
Levy, writing in Macworld magazine, insists that the ability to
express oneself in words and to understand the words of others
is essential to the process of thinking. "But multimedia laughs
at that objection," he writes, "because multimedia, like
television, is designed to entertain, at the cost of thinking."

    In the end, interactive multimedia will succeed, at least
at some level, because for certain purposes it makes good
sense. In the business world, it is already being embraced as
a tool to train workers in such complex skills as aircraft
maintenance and computer repair. But multimedia still lacks what
computer companies call the "killer application," a program like
the electronic spreadsheet or the word processor that is so
compelling that consumers will buy a new device just to run it.
As Marshall McLuhan pointed out, every new medium takes its
content from its predecessor: early films were simply recorded
stage plays; the first TV shows were converted radio dramas. The
same is probably true of this newest medium, which represents
the merger of all its predecessors. At the moment, interactive
multimedia is a powerful tool whose best uses remain on the
horizon.


________________________________________________________________
MARRYING TVs, CDs AND PCs

    CD-ROM. Compact discs that can be played on a personal
computer. The first technology to exploit the huge storage
capacity of CDs, it requires different discs for different brands
of computers.

    MPC. A personal computer with a CD drive built in. More than
70 companies, led by Microsoft and Tandy, are producing MPC
hardware and software.

    CD-I. A computerized CD player built by Philips that plugs
into a television set instead of using a computer screen.

    CDTV. Commodore's version of CD-I, marketed earlier but with
a more limited selection of software.

    Kaleida. A new joint venture by Apple and IBM to develop
their version of the multimedia computer of future. First
product due in the mid-'90s.