by David S. Alberts, Daniel S. Papp, and W. Thomas Kemp III
Spurred on by the Cold War, the United States during the 1950s and 1960s made massive investments in its scientific and technological infrastructures, particularly those segments related to national defense. Many of these investments, as discussed in Chapter 1, were a driving force behind the enablers of the Information Age: semiconductors, computers, and satellites, some of the primary technologies of the second modern information revolution.
By the late 1980s, the dawn of yet another information revolution had emerged, this time spurred by further advances in and wider dissemination of semiconductors, computers, fiber optics, networking, and other information and communication technologies. While defense spending played a significant role in bringing about this new revolution, private companies and individual entrepreneurs were also a driving force behind many of the emerging new technologies. Many analysts predicted that the effects of this new revolution would dwarf those that had come before. Indeed, it was at this point in history when many analysts began to describe the rapidly approaching 21st century as "the Information Age."1
Subsequent chapters in this book will explore various dimensions of the Information Age. In this chapter, our task is different. Here, we provide a non-technical overview of some of the technologies that have the greatest potential to further expand humankind’s ability to create knowledge and to communicate, and ponder what effects they might have.
Many technologies are part of the contemporary information revolution, but eight stand out: (1) advanced semiconductors; (2) advanced computers; (3) fiber optics; (4) cellular technology; (5) satellite technology; (6) advanced networking; (7) improved human-computer interaction; and (8) digital transmission and digital compression. Each will be discussed separately, although in practice the capabilities of several are often combined.
Advanced Semiconductors. Semiconductors are arguably the technology that has contributed the most to our current ability to store, process, and communicate information. Indeed, without the advances in semiconductor technology that have taken place over the past 30 years,2 information and communication technologies may have required hundreds of years to advance to their present levels rather than hundreds of weeks. As Chapter 2 showed, advances in communications and information storage and processing capabilities were slow in evolving for most of recorded history. However, with the invention of the semiconductor, the rate of advance in a host of computing capabilities (including expanded memory, faster speed, improved reliability, and overall performance) increased dramatically, often approaching exponential growth.
Semiconductors are made by implanting electronic switches onto silicon wafers. First, a large circular silicon wafer is made. This wafer is then divided into as many squares as possible; the larger the circular wafer and the more squares that can be cut from the wafer, the better. Small electronic switches are then assembled on the cut square wafers. The final product is a semiconductor.
Semiconductor technology has improved dramatically since the mid-1970s. In 1978, a computer memory chip held approximately 10,000 bits of information; by 1993, each chip could hold roughly 10 million bits of information. Throughout this decade and a half, the amount of computational memory per computer chip increased by a factor of 4 every 3 years.3 This is the equivalent of investing one dollar and having it grow to over 500 dollars in 15 years. These advances were achieved by learning how to more densely populate each silicon wafer and by improving the switches.
Manufacturers also learned how to increase the size of each wafer, allowing still more switches to be placed on each. For example, in 1980, an advanced microprocessor contained perhaps 10,000 transistors; by 1994, this number grew to approximately 100 million transistors, a 10 thousand fold increase. Between 1966 and 1989, semiconductors dramatically increased in size, from 30 mm to 200 mm, increasing the amount of information that could be stored from 3,200 bits to one billion bits. Between 1989 and 1996, the productivity of semiconductors increased over 300,000 times. In the future, 300 mm wafers could contain as many as fifty billion bits, a productivity increase of 16 million.4
Simultaneously, the costs of manufacturing semiconductors declined. In 1970, one bit of information cost roughly one cent to store; by 1990, it cost only one thousandth of a cent to store. This dramatic reduction in storage cost reduced the cost of manufacturing semiconductors, and is projected to continue.5
There is, however, a cloud on the horizon for semiconductors. Advances in semiconductor technology have required finding ways to put additional and/or better designed switches on silicon wafers and to increase the size of the wafer. Recently, however, some manufacturers have concluded that the semiconductor is nearing the physical limits of size and design. Many believe that to continue to improve semiconductor technology, a new manufacturing process must be developed.6
There may be ways to do this. Presently, the creation of the silicon wafer uses two materials. A new manufacturing technology for semiconductors might craft wafers from one material instead of two, thus decreasing the thickness of semiconductors and allowing them to be used more flexibly. Manufacturers are also experimenting with new electronic switches for semiconductors as well as bio-switches and other forms of switches that would increase a semiconductor’s performance without requiring additional wafer space.
If semiconductor technology is to continue to improve, new advances in electronic switching and new technologies for semiconductor manufacturing will be needed. Most experts believe that this will occur.7 If they are right, advanced semiconductors will continue to be a driving force behind the third modern information revolution.
Advanced Computers. Computers are central to all facets of automated information creation, dissemination, and utilization. Since the creation of the world’s first computer, computer capabilities have improved immensely. Enabled by improved microchips, today’s computers are much faster, have much larger capacities, and are much more reliable than those that were used as recently as 2 years ago. Within the information technology community, there is unanimity that computing capabilities will continue to expand. Many experts believe that early in the twenty-first century, high- volume microprocessors will have cracked the so-called "bips barrier" and will be able to execute over one billion operations per second.8 Beyond this, the U.S. Government’s High Performance Computing and Communicating Program expects to create supercomputers with the ability to compute one trillion mathematical operations per second.9
Computers and related technologies are the backbone of the third modern information revolution. Beginning in the early 1970s, the perfection of very large-scale integrated circuits permitted hundreds of thousands of components to be placed on one chip. This led to the development of fourth generation computers,10 which were followed in the late 1970s and 1980s by fifth generation computers such as the Cray super-computer which used multiple processing units to process data simultaneously in a parallel manner. We are fast approaching the time when desktop work stations exceed the computational power of early fifth generation computers. And sixth generation computers that are based on artificial intelligence are on the horizon.
As computer performance improved during the 1980s and 1990s, computer technology doubled its price performance ratio roughly every 18 months. This meant that every year and a half, computers doubled their performance capabilities without increasing their price. There is every expectation that such price performance improvement will continue into at least the near-term future. This raises the possibility that as computer performance improves and costs decline, "ubiquitous computing" will become a reality, that is, computers will recede into the background of consciousness much the way electric motors did because they will be everywhere. Nevertheless, computers will still be there.
The transformation of the communications industry occurred when older switching technologies were replaced by digital switches. Hence, computers are now responsible for the global transmission and receipt of voice, video, and digital data; thus, given the volume of global information and communications flows, it is only computerized switching that allows coordination of the world’s information and communications flows in a practical and time-effective manner. Computerized switching has contributed to the creation of a global switching network utilizing cables, microwaves, and satellites so that users of most of the world’s estimated 700 million telephones can talk to each other via standard voice communication or via facsimile machines. Nearly all of the world’s telephone services are now controlled using computerized switching. Computers also allow consumers cost-effective optional features such as touch-tone dialing, call waiting, call forwarding, digital voice mail, and conference calling. As important, computers attached to phone lines with modems and other devices can communicate directly and automatically with other computers regardless of location.
What does the future hold for computer technology? Most analysts believe the future will in many
ways be like the past, with continued increases in computational power, greater reliability,
continued miniaturization, and even lower costs arriving in rapid fire order. Increasingly, portable
computers and other personal digital assistants are being used by business and residential
consumers as prices decline, ease of use improves, and features become increasingly enhanced.
Hardware advances may soon bring us "wearable" computers and "truly personal" computers that
will allow more mobility and freedom of movement for users without sacrificing computing ability.11
Thus, computer advances have helped permit messages, data, and information to be transferred
globally on virtually a moment’s notice. As computers continue to become smaller and lighter, as
computer power requirements are reduced, as power sources become more portable, and as costs
over time decline, computers will become truly ubiquitous. If the information technology community
is correct in its predictions of continued rapid advances, the implications for humankind’s ability to
communicate and relate to one another, the conduct of the business and government affairs, and the
structure of the international system are immense.
Fiber Optics. Historically, telegraph, telephone, and cable television services were carried over copper wires and coaxial cables. These are being phased out by a superior technology, fiber optics. Fiber optics, extremely thin glass fibers, carry light pulses similar to Morse code from a sending source to a receiving destination. Fiber optic cables experience lower attenuation and leakage than copper wire, and can carry much more information and data than either copper wire or coaxial cables. For example, copper wire can carry 64,000 bits of information per second, whereas fiber optics can carry over a billion bits of information per second.12
Similarly, coaxial cable can transmit only 2 to 4 audio channels and 60 video channels. This transmission capacity is adequate for basic telephone and cable television services, but not for connecting to the "information superhighway." By comparison, a cable television company using fiber optics can transmit over 500 channels and allow customers to custom design their own cable television packages.
We have witnessed only the beginning of the expansion of bandwidth offered by fiber optics. Some experts predict that eventually the capacity of advanced fiber optic cables will exceed one trillion bits of information per second.13 If this prediction is accurate, humankind’s capacity to transmit information will expand tremendously as fiber optic technology evolves and is adopted more widely.
Cellular Technology. Until recently, most commercially available two-way capable electromagnetic transmitters and receivers that could cover extended distances required sizable equipment, wire or cable, or some combination of the two. In any case, the locations from which one could transmit and receive messages were tied to technology that could be transported only with difficulty.
The advent of modern cellular and related technologies is changing this. The combination of miniaturization, local radio nets, advanced networks, and improved transceivers that make up cellular and related technologies is rapidly cutting through the knot that tied telephones to wires or cable and that limited the flexibility of telephonic and related communications.
In the United States and other developed countries, cellular and related technologies entered widespread use in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Since then, the growth in cellular technologies use has been phenomenal. For example, in the United States, commercial cellular systems began operating in 1983; by 1991, approximately 7.5 million Americans subscribed to cellular service; and by 1995, the number had grown to 25 million, with cellular coverage available in half the country. Meanwhile, in Japan, fewer than 250,000 people used cellular phones in 1989; by 1994, the number had grown to 2.1 million people; and by 1996, to approximately 11 million people.14
In essence, cellular telephones are mobile radio transmitters and receivers that look and act like traditional telephones, using radio waves to send and receive messages from remote non-wired locations. Users operate cellular telephones in much the same way that traditional telephones are operated. Unlike land-wired telephones, however, cellular telephones rely on cellular radio towers to transmit messages to and from the cellular user. Users of cellular systems are therefore not tied to sending and receiving locations that are connected by wires.
Although commercial cellular systems have been in use only since the late 1970s and early 1980s, cellular telephone technology is not new. Indeed, it has been used since early in the twentieth century. For example, during World War I, Motorola produced mobile telephones for the Allied armies. These mobile telephones for all practical purposes were the first cellular telephones. Radiophones were similarly used in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.15
Although the technology used for communications in these conflicts remained basically the same, the size of the radiophone decreased considerably. Whereas a soldier in World War I required a full backpack to send and receive radio communications, a Vietnam-era soldier needed only a large radio telephone. Today, most cellular telephones are smaller than standard line-wired telephones, and many fit into a shirt pocket. All are powerful enough to send and receive messages several miles. Enhanced miniaturization, advances in networking, and improved transmitter performance will inevitably expand the adoption of cellular technology.
Increasingly, cellular telephone users can also send and receive data as more and more computer users employ cellular telephones in conjunction with computer modems. The combination of cellular technology and portable computers allows people to exchange information to and from virtually anywhere in the world in near real time.
Outside the industrialized world, cellular technology is having a notable impact in many developing states. Newly industrialized countries such as South Korea and Taiwan are using cellular technology to augment existing line-wired telecommunications networks, thereby improving their telecommunications infrastructures without expending resources on land-based telephone lines. Developing countries such as India and some Caribbean states are building new national telecommunications networks using cellular technology instead of traditional land-based line technology.16 For many of these countries, cellular technologies provide better services than land-lines and have lower installation and maintenance costs. Cellular technology has thus helped some developing states construct advanced national telecommunications infrastructures, thereby accelerating economic development.
The most notable recent advance in cellular technology is the personal communication system (PCS). Using cellular technology and employing extremely small cellular radio repeaters to transmit and receive messages, a PCS has several advantages over a traditional cellular system. First, since a PCS cellular repeater is much smaller than traditional cellular radio towers and can fit inside an office or room, it is more flexible than a traditional cellular repeater.17 Second, a PCS also costs less to install and maintain than a traditional cellular system. However, a PCS also has a disadvantage in that it has a more limited range than a traditional cellular system and hence requires many more repeaters to achieve the same coverage.
As cellular systems proliferate, capabilities increase, and costs decline, more and more people will use cellular technology, and use it not for "emergencies" but as their normal means of communications. There is no doubt, then, that cellular technologies are having a sizable impact on the way people interact by eliminating the need to be "connected" by a tether to a house or an office. Cellular technologies have therefore become a central feature of the contemporary information revolution.
Satellite Technology. Satellites have played a major role in global communications since the first true telecommunications satellite, Syncom III, was launched in 1964. The following year, "Early Bird," the world’s first commercial communication satellite, was launched. Although it could carry only 240 voice channels or one television channel, "Early Bird" was the beginning of a massive global communication revolution.18
Since then, the entire world has been linked together via communication satellites. Theoretically, a global satellite communication network could employ as few as three satellites, but in fact many satellites, most in geosynchronous orbit 23,000 miles above the equator, make up the present-day global satellite communication network. Most low- and middle-latitude countries use these geosynchronous orbits, but countries in higher latitudes such as Russia often use satellites in elliptical orbits because they have difficulty receiving signals from satellites over the equator.
Satellite communication has improved immensely during the first several decades of its existence. Whereas "Early Bird" and its immediate successors carried only a few hundred voice channels, today’s satellites carry thousands of channels for telephone, television, and data transmission. Direct broadcast satellites and store-and-forward satellites are the two main types of communication satellites. A direct broadcast satellite acts as a repeater for information, allowing a broadcast site to send information to a satellite and have that information redirected elsewhere in the world. Store-and-forward satellites allow information to be sent to a satellite, have that information stored until a later time, and transmit that information exclusively to authorized recipients. Direct broadcast satellites are often employed by broadcast and cable television companies, while governments and private business with sensitive data to protect from unauthorized recipients use store-and-forward satellites.
Satellite technology, in conjunction with computers, telephones, digital compression, and other information and communication technologies, has helped build an international communication infrastructure accessible by governments, business, education, and private consumers. Satellite technology provides information—particularly defense-related and weather-related information—previously unavailable to any but major powers and some international corporations. Satellites have made international telephone calls, global electronic mail, intercontinental teleconferencing, and worldwide broadcasts of television events commonplace. Satellite telephone calls, which directly use communication satellites to send and receive messages, have become the norm rather than the exception.
Increased access to instantaneous satellite communications has tied the world more closely together than ever before. As computer advances, digital technologies and digital compression, and cellular technology are increasingly married with satellite communication, the global network of communication satellites will evolve into a seamless information infrastructure that will significantly enhance the value of the connectivity provided.19
Indeed, in March 1994, William H. Gates, Chairman of Microsoft, and Craig O. McCaw, Chairman of McCaw Cellular Communications, formed Teledesic Corporation, whose purpose was to create by 2001 a $9 billion global system of 840 low-orbit satellites.20 Although Teledesic has little likelihood of achieving its goal by 2001, if it or other firms or government are able to create such a system, instantaneous satellite-based communications will be available at virtually every spot on earth.
Advanced Networking. Discussed briefly under computing advances, networking has become a science unto itself. Throughout the world, scientists and engineers are investigating a host of specific methods and concepts to enhance "connectivity," that is, the ability of various forms of communication technologies to talk to each other, and to enhance the speed at which these communications take place.
The largest and best known network is the Internet, used widely in the United States and around the world by governments, universities, businesses, and individuals. Established as the ARPANET in the 1980s by the U.S. Government for use by government and university researchers and analysts to rapidly exchange their research results and ideas, the ARPANET evolved into the Internet and has since expanded throughout the world. Information and information-related services of infinite variety can now be found on the Internet, ranging from stock and commodity prices, instant news and weather updates, census data, homepages for all manner of organizations, religious tracts, items for sale, pen pals, and even specialized forms of pornography.
As Figure 3-1 and Table 3-1 show, the growth of the Internet has been explosive both in quantitative and geographic terms. In 1988, the Internet had barely 100 networks connected to it. By 1991, approximately 4,000 networks were attached. By 1995, approximately 40,000 networks were connected, about two-thirds in the United States. Globally, a new network joined the Internet in 1995 approximately every half hour from countries as widely scattered as Algeria, Brazil, Ghana, Kazakhstan, and Vietnam.
Figure 3-1. The Growth of the Internet
Even more networking advances are on the horizon. For example, the U.S. Government is pursuing advanced networking under the auspices of the High Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC) program, which has as one of its objectives the development of computer networks capable of transmitting a billion bits (i.e., one gigabit) of data per second. The specific purpose of the HPCC program is to upgrade the U.S. National Research and Education Network (NREN). It is expected that there will be significant commercial spin-offs in areas as diverse as credit card validation, banking, airline and hotel reservations, and outsourcing services. HPCC networking advances will also play a significant role in creating the "information superhighway," which will link many different services from a variety of different electronic mediums into one communication pathway and network.21
The United States leads the world in networking technologies, but even in the United States, the creation of a completely integrated, high-speed, high capacity network remains years away. The creation of such a network that extends beyond the United States linking different states and regions is even farther in the future. Even so, over time, advanced networking application and uses will proliferate. Global electronic mail via the Internet is already a reality, and software systems such as "web browsers" are making it increasingly easy to navigate. Aside from providing access to the Internet, commercial online services such as America Online provide a host of value-added services. Advanced networking is thus a critical technology in the information revolution, with impacts that are only beginning to be realized.
Improved Human-Computer Interaction. In their 50 years of existence, computers have terrified many people because of the complexity of their "man-machine interface." Recently, however, the widespread availability of easily understandable and usable operating systems and software such as Macintosh and Windows has reduced the level of fear. Indeed, more and more people have found and are finding that working with computers is not necessarily all that difficult.
Much of the greater ease of computer use is the result of the greater processing capacity that today’s computers have. As computer capacities increase, a greater percentage of capacity can be devoted to simplifying the user interface as opposed to delivering functionality.
Even easier interface systems that utilize voice recognition and handwriting identification are in their infancy, with their maturation and proliferation on the horizon. These and other improved interface technologies promise to open the world of computing to millions of people who currently avoid computers because of real and imagined barriers associated with the user interface. This, in turn, implies that more and more people will exchange messages, data, and information, and find themselves managing, manipulating, and using data in electronic form.22
Digital Transmission and Digital Compression. Until recently, almost all telecommunication mediums used analog transmissions, that is, transmissions in which electrical signals were used to represent the voice, data, graphic, or picture that was being sent. This is changing as digital technology replaces analog technology. Digital transmissions use binary digits—ones and zeros— carried as electrical pulses to represent data and information.
Digital signals have numerous advantages over analog signals. They are completely accurate and less subject to attenuation. They are the language of computers, and they are fast. In addition, digital technology allows users to employ a type of shorthand mathematical approach, digital compression, in which immense data files can be dramatically reduced in size. Digital compression identifies what part of a picture or data set is new and what is old, and sends only the new information. This increases the amount of information that can be sent over a "line" of given capacity.
In basic terms, there are two primary types of compression, "lossless compression" and "lossy compression." Lossless compression is used when the receiving party must replicate exactly the data that was transmitted. For example, if text is being transmitted, every word or entry sent must be received as sent. However, if pictures are being transmitted, a certain loss of clarity, focus, or color may be acceptable. Lossless compression allows less compression. As a result, lossless compression permits a compression ratio of perhaps only 4 or 5, that is, a transmission length of 20 to 25 percent of the uncompressed message.
Lossy compression is another matter. Presently, lossy compression ratios in the 20 to 30 range are typical (requiring only three to five percent of the "full" message, and some experts estimate that lossy compression will allow as much as 100 times the amount of information to be sent over a given channel. Clearly, if this prediction proves accurate, both the speed and the capacity of international communication will expand significantly as digital compression technologies are adopted widely.23
Furthermore, the addition of ISDN services, a digital telecommunications technology that offers users voice mail, quick and clear video-conferencing, and increased speed for data transmission, has greatly expanded the role of the telephone for business and residential use. For example, although facsimile (FAX) technology is not new, only with the advent of widespread digital telecommunications has the FAX pervaded business, government, academic, and residential markets. As business and other users in the 1980s found that new technologies enabled the FAX to quickly transmit even long documents, the use of FAX machines expanded tremendously. By the 1990s, many business and residential users had integrated computing and FAX capabilities.
Digital transmission and digital compression are thus critical technologies of the third modern information revolution. They have already had a significant impact on human interaction and hold promise to further increase humankind’s ability to overcome constraints on communication imposed by time, location, and distance.
Individually, each technology discussed above will significantly enhance humankind’s ability to communicate, to utilize information, and to overcome obstacles presented to communication of distance, time, and location. Taken together, however, the impact that these technologies may be expected to have will be significantly magnified. Potential impacts may be grouped into six major areas.
Increased Speed. The speed with which information can be transmitted will increase significantly, and once received, the speed at which it can be managed, manipulated, and interpreted will also increase. The speed at which information flows within organizations and among organizations and international actors will increase, although at differing rates depending upon on a host of factors. Increased speed will matter more for some uses than for others. Not surprisingly, some international actors will benefit more from more rapid information flows than others. But in general, the increased speed of information flow will serve to increase the tempo of interactions.
Greater Capacity. The capacity to transmit information will also increase significantly as these technologies are improved. Once again, increased capacity will become available at different rates to different types of organizations. As with increased speed, greater information and communication capacity will benefit some organizations and international actors more than others. Here, however, the point to be stressed is that for many organizations and actors, the ability to transmit and interpret vastly greater amounts of information will mean that decision makers will have a greatly enhanced picture of the world, themselves, and others upon which to base their decisions.
Enhanced Flexibility. The seven technologies discussed will also enhance the flexibility of information flows. Those needing information will be able to reach out and get it from a greatly increased number of potential sources. Those needing to communicate with someone will find it easier to do so quickly and directly. Put differently, these technologies will decrease the location dependence of information and communication transactions.Once again, enhanced flexibility will be available to some more quickly than others and will matter more for some than for others.
Greater Access. In addition to increased speed, greater capacity, and enhanced flexibility, the seven technologies discussed above will provide greater access to people, organizations, and information to more and more individuals.
Some observers have argued that improved access will lead to the "democratization" of information and communication flows throughout the world, that is, a decreased ability of a few (e.g., governments, businesses, and the "haves") to dominate information and communication channels. This may be true. However, improved access will not occur throughout the world at the same rate of speed. It will also undoubtedly be organized in different ways depending on the organization or actor under discussion. And as we have already discussed, all will not benefit equally. Thus, whether this optimistic scenario of the democratizing impact of information and communication technologies is accurate remains to be seen.
More Types of Message. Little more than a century ago, electronic communications was confined to sending electrical pulses that represented letters of the alphabet a few hundred miles along wire cables. But today, it is possible to send voice, data, and picture messages from one side of the world to the other.
To the extent that more complex messages such as pictures more accurately represent reality and are more quickly absorbed and understood than text messages, the expansion of message types from text to voice, data, and picture is an important factor in enhancing the utility of "global connectivity."
Heightened Demand. The impacts of the technologies discussed above are a direct function of involved technologies. Heightened demand is different as it is not a direct but a secondary impact, that is, a function of how individuals and other international actors will react to the capabilities provided by advanced information and communication technologies. Heightened demand will result from factors such as increased availability, greater utility, heightened interest, ease of use, and of course, lower costs.
Like the direct impacts considered, heightened demand for communications and information will occur unevenly throughout organizations, societies, and international actors. Heightened demand will act much like a chemical catalyst intensifying the impacts of technology and hurrying progress.
There is little doubt that these technologies and other advances in related information and communication technologies will expand humankind’s ability to overcome previous limitations on the ability to communicate.
But what will be the effects of these immensely expanded abilities to communicate and to utilize information? Will the effects of these technologies be so significant that the much-heralded "Information Age" becomes a reality? And what exactly will this Information Age be like? How will humankind’s established ways of conducting affairs, of undertaking interactions, and of structuring and organizing society be affected? What effects, in turn, will our expanded abilities to communicate have on international actors, their behavior, their structures, their roles in the world, and the international system that they together create?
These are difficult questions to answer. But it is important to try to find answers to them since those who best answer them will be better able not only to operate in the Information Age, but will also be better able to influence how the world will operate and how it it will be shaped. The rest of this book is devoted to an examination of these and other questions and issues about the Information Age.
1. See for example, Gerald Brock, Telecommunications Policy for the Information Age: From Monopoly to Competition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994).
2. For a detailed discussion of the development of semiconductors, see Peter R. Morris, A History of the World Semiconductor Industry (London: P. Peregrinus on behalf of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, 1990).
3. Forest Baskett and John L. Hennessy, "Microprocessors: From Desktops to Supercomputers" (Science, Volume 261: August 13, 1993), p. 864.
4. Ibid., and H.S. Lehman, Electronics Technology Perspective (Paper presented for the research seminar, "The Information Revolution: Its Current and Future Consequences" (Atlanta, GA: Packaging Research Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1995), pp. 4-5.
5. Raymond A. Fillion, "A Forecast on the Future of Hybrid Wafer Scale Integration Technology" (IEEE Transactions on Components, Hybrids, and Manufacturing Technology, v16: November 1993), p. 615.
6. Ibid., pp. 615-624.
7. Ibid., pp. 615-624.
8. Baskett and Hennessy, p. 864.
9. For a discussion of the HPCC program, see Dana A. Browne et al. (eds.), High Performance Computing and Its Applications in the Physical Sciences: Proceedings of the Mardi Gras ‘93 Conference, February 18-20, 1993, Louisiana State University (River Edge, NJ: World Scientific, 1994).
10. For a discussion of the first three generations of computers, see Chapter 1.
11. For a discussion of "wearable" and "truly personal computers," see S. Finger, et al., "Rapid Design and Manufacture of Wearable Computers," Communications of the ACM (February 1996) and Galen Gruman, "Truly Personal Computers," MacWorld (August 1996).
12. For discussions of fiber optics, see Lynne D. Greene, Fiber Optic Communications (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1993); Gail J. Brown, Technologies for Optical Fiber Communications (Bellingham, WA: USA SPIE, 1994); Joseph W. Goodman, "Levels of Light," Byte (October 1989); and Paul Merenbloom, "Considering Copper? Think Fiber to the Desktop," InfoWorld (November 27, 1995).
13. "Modeling Reality," IEEE Spectrum, (September 1992), p. 56.
14. "Enter, Son of Walkman," Economist (June 22, 1996), pp. 64-67; The New York Times, March 18, 1992; and "Remote Phones Made Simple," Mother Earth News (April 1996), pp. 18-22.
15. For a discussion of the development of wireless telephony, see George G. Blake, History of Radio Telegraphy and Telephony (New York, NY: Arno Press, 1974).
16. The New York Times, July 6, 1992; and Michael Vatikiotis and Jonathan Karp, "Upwardly Mobile," Far Eastern Economic Review, (May 18, 1995), pp. 82-86.
17. Sara Curtis, "Beyond Cellular," MacLean’s (January 23, 1995), pp. 46-47; and Economist (June 22, 1996), pp. 64-67.
18. For discussions of communications satellites, see Gary D. Morgan and Walter L. Morgan, Principles of Communication Satellites (New York, NY: Wiley, 1993); James Wood, Satellite Communications Pocket Book (Boston, MA: Newnes, 1994); and G. Marall and M. Bousquet, Satellite Communications Systems: Systems, Techniques, and Technology (New York, NY: Wiley, 1993).
19. "Infrastructure in the Sky," Economist (March 26, 1994), pp. 101-102; and Gary Stix, "Cyberspace Cadets," Scientific American (June 1994), pp. 98-101.
20. Atlanta Journal Constitution (March 21, 1994).
21. Dana A. Browne, et al. (eds.), High Performance Computing and Its Applications in the Physical Sciences: Proceedings of the Mardi Gras ‘93 Conference, February 18-20, 1993, Louisiana State University (River Edge, NJ: World Scientific, 1994); and Raymond A. Fillion, "A Forecast on the Future of Hybrid Wafer Scale Integration Technology" (IEEE Transactions on Components, Hybrids, and Manufacturing Technology, November 1993), p. 615.
22. For discussions of human-computer interaction, see Alan Dix, Human-Computer Interaction (New York, NY: Prentice Hall, 1993); Mark W. Lansdale and Thomas C. Ormerod, Understanding Interface: A Handbook of Human-Computer Dialogue (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1994); and Brad J. Blumenthal, Human-Computer Interaction (New York, NY: Springer Verlag, 1994).
23. For discussions of digital transmission and compression, see Richard E. Matick, Transmission Lines for Digital and Communication Networks (New York, NY: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1995); Arun N. Netravali, Digital Pictures: Representation, Compression, and Standards (New York, NY: Plenum Press, 1995); and R.J. Clarke, Digital Compression of Still Images and Photos (New York, NY: Academic Press, 1995).
| Anthology Index | Chapter 4 |