Elon University

Archives: Expert Predictions

It’s Bandwidth and Symmetry, Stupid!

We want a dial tone for high-speed symmetrical links. Whatever the network’s going to be, it must be symmetrical. You can send to me, I can send to you at the same time and data rate. That’s an important part. Symmetry is the key. I want to allow bit warehouses or bit stores or bit places for audio, nice images, or television. And then, 4D so we can do virtual reality. That’s a bandwidth question. With that we can do the tele stuff. That is, we can do the remote conferencing, remote work and remote business. I think those things are needed.

It’s Bandwidth and Symmetry, Stupid!

We still have another factor of a hundred or so to go to adhere to the projection [for the Internet]. We need probably another factor of a thousand to do the kind of things [we expect] for Internet-3 … I don’t think we’ll have relative [fully functioning video] for awhile, but … they’re going to know you’re a dog if you’re on Internet.

It’s Bandwidth and Symmetry, Stupid!

E-mail really is under-appreciated and under-utilized and I think it’ll be the dominant information carrier. It carries presentations, transactions, schedules, meetings and I hope bills.

It’s Bandwidth and Symmetry, Stupid!

With more bandwidth, do we need CDs at all? … The worst thing about the arrival of magazines and reports is the ability to find the magazine and article once you’ve read it. Did you throw it away? where is it filed? what issue is it in? I’d gladly pay extra for online access to a magazine so that I don’t have to file it. In some cases, I’d pay extra to never get it at all and simply access it when I need to. Bills is my favorite one to come electronically … Merchants send us their bills via email. And thank god, faxes are disappearing. We owe it to the world to get rid of faxes. And finally personal letters. For many of us letters have almost disappeared. We don’t owe it to the world to get rid of personal letters because they’re nice things. In a lot of cases, Internet brings people closer together because they’re on already and using it for personal communication is easy and natural.

It’s Bandwidth and Symmetry, Stupid!

The key to growth is an instrument I want to call the telecomputer or device that accesses Internet … we will have a $1,500, 1995 multimedia computer for a few hundred dollars sooner than you think.

It’s Bandwidth and Symmetry, Stupid!

Next there will be lawsuits. Since we are all spending hours browsing, there will be info-way addiction. And that’s followed by info-way regulations.

Former Key Digital Researcher Joins Microsoft Robot Project

A robot that can interact with people and be manipulated over long distances, perhaps over the Internet … He said he hopes in about five years to create a robot … “How you would do it and why anybody would want it are questions that have to be answered.”