HUMAN-NETS Digest V8 #15
human...@ucbvax.arpa
HUMAN-NETS Digest Wednesday, 24 Apr 1985 Volume 8 : Issue 15
Today's Topics:
Queries - Telecommuting-electronic cottage &
Home Computing Predictions,
Computer Networks - Home computers on a Radio Network,
Computers and People - Digital Utility Centers
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Date: Thu 11 Apr 85 14:49:56-PST
From: Bill Guns <Gu...@SRI-KL.ARPA>
Subject: Telecommuting-electronic cottage
For a friend...
Mail-From: BIP created at 11-Apr-85 10:21:18
Date: Thu 11 Apr 85 10:21:18-PST
From: Business Intelligence Program -- Menlo Park <B...@SRI-KL.ARPA>
Subject: TELECOMMUTING-ELECTRONIC COTTAGE
cc: b...@SRI-KL.ARPA
I'M DOING SOME RESEARCH ON TELECOMMUTING AND I'VE RUN ACROSS A
REFERENCE TO AN "ASSOCIATION OF ELECTRONIC COTTAGERS". ALL I'VE FOUND
OUT ABOUT IT SO FAR IS THAT IT HAS ABOUT 100 MEMBERS AND WAS FORMED
LAST NOVEMBER. IF ANYONE OUT THERE CAN GIVE ME ANY INFORMATION ON
THIS GROUP, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. REPLY TO BIP@SRI-KL.
TODD SHAREK
SRI INTERNATIONAL
THANK YOU!
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Date: Wed 17 Apr 85 23:51:08-PST
From: Paul Saffo <SA...@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Possible listing
I am attempting to make some sense out of where "home computing"
(defined broadly) is headed in the next five years. Popular
commentators offer little help because of their reluctance to speak in
any but the greatest generalities, so I am trying a different
approach:I am collecting predictions of *specific*
uses/applications/appliances that current users believe we will see in
the home in 1990. Examples include: a flat screen icebox family
message board, (imagine playing video games on it--the icemaker could
shoot ice at you when you lose...) touch screen telephones,
interactive laser disk game systems and home banking systems that
include the capability to purchase lottery tickets. Please help me
add to the list. I will share the results with anyone who is
interested.
Paul Saffo (Saffo@SU-SCORE)
780 Roble Ave, #4
Menlo Park, Ca 94025
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Date: Thu 11 Apr 85 16:51:30-EST
From: Ralph W. Hyre Jr. <RAL...@MIT-XX.ARPA>
Subject: Using home computers to capture useful information.
Here at MIT we are building a new kind of information system which
uses a digital broadcast channel to disseminate information from
various sources, including newswires and the ARPAnet. (In fact,
human-nets is one of the ARPAnet bboards we are distributing.)
The system is called the Boston Community Information System. The
digital broadcast channel is an FM subcarrier, which provides a 4.8kb
data rate. Users of the system use a personal computer to monitor the
information coming over the channel. The computer saves any
information that the user has expressed a preference in. For example,
the user would type '#section sports' to collect the sports section
from the newswire, or 'olivia newton john' to keep articles with any
reference to olivia newton-john.
Work is proceeding on a two-way system which will provide transparent
access to the complete database available on our host computer. This
will allow access to information that you have not told your computer
to collect, such as movie reviews or Mexican restaurant menus.
For more information about this system, please send a request to:
Rebecca Bisbee
545 Technology Square, Room 403
Cambridge, MA 02139
If your need is less urgent, papers have been submitted for
publication, and I will post submit the references as they become
available.
- Ralph Hyre
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Date: 12 Apr 1985 01:05 EST (Fri)
From: Wayne McGuire <MDC.WAYNE%MIT...@MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: Stephen Wolff <st...@BRL-TGR.ARPA>
Subject: Digital Utility Centers (HND:8#13)
Yes, the D'Ignazio passage from Compute! was seriously blemished
by ugly and sometimes ridiculous journalistic huffing and puffing
(Compute! seems to be editorially directed mostly at junior high
school students with Christmas Commodores), and yet he still managed
to put his finger on a few important issues with an imaginative
directness that has mostly eluded the more technologically judicious.
It's beginning to look like the home computer market has
collapsed in a fairly spectacular way, leaving a number of major
companies badly burned; perhaps home computers truly will suffer the
fate of videogames a few years ago. D'Ignazio suggests that current
personal microcomputer technology is still in the stone age, and will
have to evolve significantly in power--especially as a component in
sophisticated videotex systems--before it becomes, like television and
telephony, a fixture in the home. Do you disagree?
It's surprising that the sages at IBM, who are presumably immune
to journalistic tomfoolery, didn't realize that there isn't an
enthusiastic mass market for $1000 paperweights.
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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