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1997-06-21
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~ BUSINESS AS USUAL IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE ~
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Talk of future shock, megatrends and post-industrial societies should
have been taken with a large pinch of salt, according to Tom Forester from
the School of Computing and Information Technology at Griffith University,
Queensland. Predictions that the microchip would transform society have
turned out to be wrong.
"The truth is that society has not changed very much," he said.
"Life goes on for the vast majority of people in much the same old way.
Computers have proved to be useful tools - no more, no less. Neither
utopia nor dystopia has arrived on earth as a result of computerisation."
One of the most pervasive myths is that large numbers of people will
soon be working, shopping and banking from home. "The technocrats who
have advocated increased telecommuting as a possible solution to traffic
congestion and air pollution have seriously underestimated the human or
psychological problems of working at home," he said.
The cashless society is another paradox of the microchip revolution.
Cash dispensers are popular precisely because they provide cash. Home
banking, on the other hand, has failed to take off.
The leisure society has not been created. In the late 1970's, a
US Senate committee earnestly discussed the implications of a 22 hour
working week, and retirement by the age of 39. But those fortunate to
have a job are working harder than ever. In a US survey, the amount of
leisure time for the average citizen shrank by 37 per cent between 1973
and 1989. The average working year in the US is now almost a month longer
than it was in 1969.
Economic recession and declining competitiveness are more likely to
be blamed for unemployment than the computerisation of a company. There
is nothing like the number of industrial robots that some analysts had
predicted. Forester pointed out that global sales of robots peaked in
1987.
He believes that the main reason for the many wrong predictions was
was that researchers and futurists got most of their information from
vested interests such as inventors or manufacturers.
One classic prediction was the paperless office, but more not less
paper is being used. Popular machines such as photocopiers and faxes are
enormous users and generators of paper, while genuinely paperless advances
such as electronic mail and voicemail have been slow to catch on.
Forester said that the Pentagon is swimming in a sea of documentation that
goes with complex high-technology weapon systems. A US Navy cruiser, for
example, needs 26 tonnes of manuals - enough to affect the performance of
the vessel.
New Scientist, 26/09/92.
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~ GOING FOR GOLD AT THE COMPUTER OLYMPICS ~
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A computer programme which cannot be beaten at the game of go-moko
won the gold medal at an Olympic games for computers recently. Victoria,
a programme written by Victor Allis from the University of Limburg in
Maastricht, always wins when it plays any other programme at the oriental
game of strategy, which is related to Go. The best a human being can
achieve against it is a draw. The programme is proof that the problem
represented by go-moku can be solved.
Around 50 programmes were competing for awards in the Olympiad, in 13
games, including chess, bridge, scrabble and awari. The programmes'
authors were there to communicate the moves from one computer to its
opponents, debug, and swap ideas on improving their programmes.
New Scientist, 15/08/92.
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~ ADVERTISING GAINS A NEW DIMENSION ~
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Kodak have produced advertising posters that really jump out at you.
The company's technique produces 3-D posters which can be viewed without
the need for special glasses.
The first demonstration of "depth imaging" was given last week by
Roland Schindler and Bud Taylor, who invented the technique, at the
Photokina exhibition in Cologne. The image is formed from a large colour
transparancy which is illuminated from behind with a conventional light
box. Viewers see a very bright, natural colour image which appears to be
three-dimensional, extending behind and in front of the box.
To create the images, Schindler and Taylor mounted a conventional
single-lens camera on a horizontal track and took 12 colour photographs of
of the same stationary object from slightly different distances. Each photo thus
had a slightly different perspective. The two researchers developed the
pictures normally and then converted them into digital code. They
combined the 12 sets of code to produce a composite digital image of very
high resolution, with each picture point, or pixel, made from 12
subpixels.
The composite code was then fed through a light-valve printer, which
prints an image by scanning photographic film with a light beam. The
result is a colour transparancy with each pixel of the picture represented
by a cluster of subpixels. Because the subpixels are so small, there is
no overall loss of resolution.
The transparancy is bonded to a transparent plastic sheet embossed
with fine vertical ridges which serve as lenticular lenses - those which
have a convex face on both sides. The pictures have just over 50 ridges
per square inch. The use of lenticular lenses is not new - the trick is
to align the subpixels with the lenses so that a viewer's left eye always
sees one perspective, while the right eye sees another. Kodak will only
say that it has developed a computer programme to control the distribution
of the subpixels.
The image is effectively replicated up to a dozen times, with each
slightly different perspective visible from only one angle. The result is
that a viewer can walk past the picture and see what seems to be a smooth
transition from one perspective to another. Holograms give a similar "see
around" effect, but only in a single, unnatural colour - usually a
ghostly green.
New Scientist, 23/09/92.
~~~~~eof~~~~~