May 25, 1995
Gabe Ofiesh
CUseeme
On internet, at Cornell.
Video Conferencing.
Make desktop video conferencing happen with just software.
Small camera
Microphone
$600
ISDN link recommended
Everything I write is a work in progress, nothing is finished. From things we can touch, to the digital - evanescent, but REAL.
Grab video frames, compare change, send just the differences. Do some compression..
A social experiment.
Not a technological breakthrough
What creators don't appreciate - functional autonomy - they create their own power.
Designer of WP did not understand the potential of the telephone.
Telephone first thought to be for broadcasting.
WWW pages converging with this.
Brought together with a fourth person.
More impact than technological producers.
Get this social experiment going.
You can get on to computer chronicles
GO CHRONICLES
4 programs each month
date - PC / TV broadcasts
Virtual meetings - seeing the stuff they are talking about
OmniShare from HP
not to endorse product
emerging intractable trends
I'm in New York, you're in SF
Tablet - not keyboard. Over phone.
Everything happens in both places at the same time.
What ARE you interested in - works of art - drawing we are making together
We have to extrapolate - that's where we failed in education
The school room is the most sterile non-tech place we can find.
And we wonder why we have problems.
INSTANT gratification, instant feedback.
“I never thought of that,” the teacher said to the 5 year old.
MM on the info highway.
notice he has a handset in his hand.
Computer puts people at keyboard.
Execs won’t touch keyboard.
IT is culture, prejudice, attitude, money, NOT just technology.
PC?
Don't need it - just with a telephone.
Smart terminals and dumb terminals.
Books for dummies.
I want to know how to tell my wife about what I do.
I wish teachers had that kind of wisdom
State as simply as possible, only no simpler.
Voice and data on the same line.
Turn from here to computer select, look up address and phone number. I won't have to turn. OK, fine, touch and get info.
Advertisers - infomercials
sell, not because taking up time
sell because giving information that I want
I respect the advertisers who support public TV - somewhere is a person who understands quality.
Cross ties for workgroups
I don't think you need a mass of personnel.
If I enter things to do into computer, it isn't forgotten.
The vertical organization has disappeared
Horizontal org is appearing
If top mgmt is going to survive, new CEO role.
Network saturation. Danger that, if treated as unlimited. you keep stuffing bytes down until it comes to its knees.
Very telling - but software will solve it.
Bill Gates - software uses intelligent agents to read and answer e-mail
It will say, these are the important.
2 or 3 internet e-mails
They know, when they get message from e-mail X, that it is important.
Why MM - I know bandwidth is a problem.
ISDN will help us. $20 per month
In D.C. $30 - $35 per month plus 5 cents per minute
until we go get fiber or wireless
== Frank Withrow
All of this is well and good. Be devil's advocate
When Mr. Gutenberg - everyone was concerned. - libraries, editors that selected info
On info highway or on talk radio - no body has vetted that - does that mean we need to teach our kids evaluation skills.
No more than we need wise men to tell what will be printed. The church worries about it. That was one of the first priesthoods that crumbled because of the printing press.
Luther just wanted to reach bishops
Person who really started reformation was the printing press .
Best thing to give children, get them to read. To write, read good writing. Facilitate a wide range of materials, let them be selective.
I can't control all that child sees - 20 -30 minutes per day.
If I forbid, that makes them attractive.
I have to make positive.
Ray Kurszweil - provocative - by 2040 we will actually be able to take your brain an put it in a computer - two Gabes and this type of thing.
When you become your own AI.
That is interesting - what I am and what is the machine.
We will carry around extension of brain.
When I was a young psychology student
Magic - witchcraft become science
Phrenology - was right!
activates part of brain
in last 4-5- years mapping has been more advanced since last 100 years
types of experiments - watch - cursor go to upper right hand corner - brain waves control the actual movement. Direct cursor electronically.
within 5 to 10 years transmitting brain waves will guide certain crude functions.
Here and now, air force does have flight simulators - fly by brain waves.
Henry Hat, Penfiled and Roberts waited until you died.
MM is an interesting concept because, I 've thought lately about how do we know anything. We organize from sensory input. The infant at the mother's breast - eventually the infant symbolized things - hungry it hears things. Talk about bottle.
We have made a macro and micro world that the student can manipulate.
Knowers not. Learners.
None of us can really have the information we need.
Q: in this brave new mm world what role books?
I am a voracious reader - I have 6 books by bedside. I love to read. The mistake we make is that computer will replace books. I will be able to take computer to bed with me?
Computers will replace - we still respect illuminated books. Cathedrals - mm then.
While argument is going on refs:
NOT silicon snake oil - crap
Gurvitz - Gutenberg Eulogies - no mm will respect what Charles Dickens can do
Toscanini couldn't get the orchestra to play - threw a silk scarf and said “play it like that”
visual
verbal
We have sold a false bill of goods by IQ - multiple intelligences.
Read Warner Adler
Another book - A is for OX - primacy of the written alphabet - the word - makes us, brings us together as human beings.
On the other hand, I can't underestimate the power of music, art. Administration - doesn't understand what we are living for.
If mm replaces books, then they ought to be replaced.
measure for measure - study of musical instruments. Related to the emergence of all musical instruments to physics
Hoffstadters meta-magical themes
recursive drawings of Escher - Bach
Arnold Restor - pianist - would you explain how Bach relates to algorithm? He put CD on beside phone.
GEB needed to be mm book.
Gabe -
NISTB
given trends for separation of wealth - cost recovery in govt - privatization - access???
Work in progress -
what when 1000s of like minded individuls
will send draft copy - beta test for written document - obligated to mark up and send back.
e-mail save postage.
daytime in Sydney - 3am in NY.
All financial markets, currently - we are witnessing the emergence of a new constant enormous world wide - no different from two people waving
Mike - the cost of ww comm will be virtually free as all industries and all nations find it essential for open info highways.
France PTT could not afford to connect.
You do not find a toll road in distand jungle in Mozambique.
Concept of charging people on per unit - swept away by greed and innovation.
All wireless - inexpensive
Overcapacity around 2003 or 2004. Long distance below 5 cents per minute
Price war on global basis - make more mooney on monthly supplier - capital assest is having 100 000 000 subscribers - somebody starting from scratch - lease all over capability and allow access for free.
Everything changes. Without enoumous bill. How make money? Only paying small monthly fee. How do TV networks make money. Newspaper publisher.
I get Washington Times Free
Any radio staion. How do they make money.
Ask the speaker of any talk show.
Ask Ted Turner -
drop monthly fee entirely with 100 000 000
How many mags are free.
If potential for ANY of advertisers.
What I’m worried about is government policy that restricts that.
I would put a plug in the dereg act wil actully pass. In 1964 I thought 1934 act would be rewritten. I really do feel act will pass - some good things, deregulate in a massive way.
New Zealand - telephone cost went down by 75 - 80 %
Bell Research FCC research - ridicoulousness of billing. We still bill by time by distance, but there is no reason to do this anymore if in the fiber world.
We thought switching nodes in Japan. Maps in US - we'll get you there faster 186,000 miles per second it doesn't matter.
Phone companies must think of a different way to bill.
About this time in 1890s - English thought they would never accept it.
Isaac Asamov - not how to predict the technology - it was difficult to predict how we would use it - how many people would watch soap opera.
Poor always pay more. The poor is a great market. There is an enormous amount of money - pay phones - all merchandising to poor.
Not problems of equity 10 15 years - in schools - inner city schools have got to become well funded custodial centers
Just read Kozol's Savage Inequalities.
Also public policy that pooor neighborhoods be connected. A larger voting block. As such, being connected will mean being registered to vote. I don't think Newt Gingrich undersands
Voting will mean forming a constintuency insisting on roads, trash pick up and info services for recreational and education services.
Bit steream will nurture a truly egalitarian society. You won't know who is on the other end.
There was a great New Yorker cartoon. Large dog at computer.
“The great thing about Internet is that no one knows I'm a dog.”
We are running against some real enemies if you have a society
what they stand for
what they have to to contribute
What an amazing eventuality
Socially acceptable NOT to send image - send initiatives, creative works, but not their images
That person doing the transmission will have it in their control
TV will be digital on the highway.
You are not going to watch 100 channels - you will have intelligent agent.
Grandson Nicholas is 16
Called - day for movies - Hoop Dreams - 3 hour basketball movie
I was fascinated.
I thought finest ever seen - talked and talked
White boy in black culture
X
Douglass
heros
New York Times - the lonely of being white - appreciation
Gabe - watch sports report on technology
Basement is creative chaos
upstairs all in place
A healthy antagonistic cooptition
beware of happy marriages.
57 channels and nothing is on.
Son is hacker - called at 2 am - Charlie Rose
Can't control what we see when we what to see it.
Present TV will merge with phone with cable with computer.
Viewers custom build what they watch.
Cable that has 40 - 50 channels 400 - 500 channels of bandwidth
NO new networks
Big video store
Movies any time you wanted.
20 30 college bowl games
documentaries
20 30 great performances
20 30 NOVA programs
IF I can do this in terms of scheduling , I can do in terms of content.
Shop at home, software broadcast into the home.
Gabe Ofiesh - 200 channels with different information. Discovery - mark several things
No sports.
NYPD and Chicago Hope / ER
These are your menu.
Record?
Two recorders for Curt Majour 13 year old
I set up both - Tuesday not Wednes night.
Flood of new video.
Digital TV
30 images per second.
Analog controls me. I control the digital.
John Hendricks tells teachers
copyright free use in class room
discovery channel
attitude
If you watch equally.
One for 6 hours per day
other for college
Discovery channel more broadly educated than classroom
You don't learn from prof, but from peers, library, environment
Here is a market - time shifting program for radio
Terry Gross -
7 and
10
Diane Reams
Derek McGinny
Fisk
I have to feed the tape recorder, tune it in - only 90 minute tapes - I can play them in car - to bring to life dead time.
Time shift radio program.
Tape on, pick up certain program, tape it for me
$10 per tape mail order
$12 + 3 S/H
WAMU - member $5
CDR hooked to computer - put audio wave on CDR
also - internet radio programs
Put CD in car too.
Get VCR for a radio.
Time Shift - VCR - $1.5 is legal.
There is a market there.
Movies are just the beginning ...
The problems created by technology are only going to be solved by further technology.
You can tell people what to do - WHAT are the consequences of the behavior - positive especially.
Problem with many of use is the contaminated - not answering questions, interfering with natural process of exploration.
Bell taught the deaf
Typewriter was for palsy
Curb cuts - wheels on baggage - a very different world
We gain a great deal by dealing with the handicapped.
we are changing the way we will educate children. When Gabe and I - fountain of all knowledge was in the classroom
Went to movie once in awhile
The kinds of info available to children is astronomical
Books will be with us - simply text that is ink on paper. Much of computer is electronic text
Slightly more difficult to read CRT - flicker fusion - not consciously notice - much more eye movement - new flat screens - contrast is comparable.
Gabe's electronic book will be far cheaper to print.
When TV came - movies and radio were dead
If you can buy a radio station - BUY IT. New tech comes in, unless massive like automobiles. Not horses and carriages left. Old tech remains with us for a long time.
Extension of comm system that the human animal that has a sophisticated comm system.
It is the way we share private experiences publicly - you have references - maybe not 100% incredibly fascinating system
Look at art - at art museum - you see painting of the wealthy, royal - family portraits - Why, Mr Land, Mr Eastman - all of us have albums, marvelous color pictures very economical.
Impressionists didn't develop until another technology took over.
Living at the most
more scientists alive today than ever lived in the world before - massive group of people working together
Desperate need to restructure - still designed for agrarian society
by 1900
only 3 - 5%
no kids to plant the food
year round program
Q: head mounted device for special needs? Option on VGA monitor.
Yes. ARPA constructing now - chip - high res miniature screen.
Same kind of thing as John Hopkins.
80% of blindness - back to where they can read - massive, massive kind of thing
20 years ago - Kurzswiel = change print to something easily accessible to blind, removes
barrier
Xerox bought OCR for character recognition
Q: Comment. Press pass - creating information. Work for company that publishes print / CD about computers
Serial printing mode to database that is constantly kept current. You describe the agents as the ones who do this. It is an incredible job to keep up to date what we do.
Lots of ASCII on one CDROM.
Herb Simon - Nobel from Carnegie Melon began talking about critical issue of artificial agents. He likes to give what he wants by this. TAKEs NY Times - NOT reads. Occasionally want ads.
Sweep whole NY Times - agent will tell you.
I don't read stuff on the computer, NOT the NYT, Time - but I use AOL. Every day
I get Washington Times, throw out sports page
Whole thing is editorial
Wes Pruden
Throw out ads
1/3 of paper left.
I get to NYT on AOL - download articles - I don't take time, just save to disk
Wall Street Journal - my profile of 8 areas - not interested in quotes
wife does that
I use the computer and the online services for access. Printout - file, data is there.
Next purchase CDR instead of tape - 2.1 GB $600 SCSI hard drive.
I have one partition where I can put whole CD ROM 600 MB.
Within another CD under $1000 CD recordable discs under $10. Costs are no longer factor.
When I ran Ed Tech at Catholic
MM does not mean we have to use all the media
Robert Travess - did great research
mm hardware - carousel projectors.
Trouble is - SONY marketing mm presentation - everyone ignored what he was saying.
Some time one media interferes with another.
Phil Donahue - few years ago - asks about TV to 6 yr old - “I don't like TV - I like radio - the pictures are better.”
I was 13 before first radio.
Dad: Turn that thing off!
I was 22 before first TV.
Well children TV - fish in water - don't discover it.
6 yr old - dancing by TV - “Melany stand back you are too close.” -” I want to get in there and dance with them.”
“VR not here yet.”
Next morning, she said, “Grandma -when VR comes, I will be able to dance inside the TV set?”
Now - Hey. VR is it here yet.
The way children - what are you processing. Sometimes a book is the best way. Sometimes you need touch. All kinds of new elements. You have the OPTION of variety of media - bring them together.
To beta test notes.
Here is my card
243-2471
AGROS@aol.com
fwithrow@aol.com