From: Christian Mogensen <mogensen@sna.co.umist.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: PUBS: VR and related media in the news
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 11:33:48 CDT


VIRTU-L


>BUSINESS WEEK (June 7, 1993) [stuff lost]
>Will they never learn?  People do not want more TV.  Sigh.

Isn't it strange how the "major player's" talked to in the telecoms-
cable company ventures all spoke of "thousands of channels becoming
available".  Don't they realise that the concept of channels as
controlled by an outside agency becomes a bit outdated when the medium
is interactive and so huge.

Few people realise how difficult it is to manage terabytes of
information.

They couldn't cope with the overload - channels will disappear
(overconfident prediction) and be replaced by something like program
servers - pay per view stuff, with different servers focusing on
different areas. You could of course upload your own programming to a
local server, where it might be echoed across the world, all the while
earning you royalties...

Nelson's Xanadu project has maybe the best thoughts on how to cope
with all this.  He's certainly been cogitation long enough on it. :)

Christian
mogensen@sna.co.umist.ac.uk