The basic device serving consumers at home will almost certainly be some sort of hybrid telecomputer that marries a computer processor and a television screen … A CD-ROM component will allow consumers to store and later retrieve data, from train timetables to family photographs … All of this will be enormously expensive. Even allowing for the fact that competition can be counted on to drive down costs, telecomputers of the sort described here will cost thousands of dollars each … Much as we like to think of the infohighway as the centerpiece of a “postindustrial” era, building it will be a very old-fashioned capital-intensive undertaking. It will take a long time, and it will be very expensive.
Predictor: Gomery, Douglas
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Wilson Quarterly, Douglas Gomery writes: ”The basic device serving consumers at home will almost certainly be some sort of hybrid telecomputer that marries a computer processor and a television screen. It will display wide-screen images, easily accommodating all of Hollywood’s CinemaScope-like images without lopping off the sides. Since sound and pictures will be recorded in digital code rather than as analog magnetic waves, as they are today, they will be crisp, clear, and distortion-free. A CD-ROM component will allow consumers to store and later retrieve data, from train timetables to family photographs. The telecomputer will have a keyboard, but its interactive heart will be a semiconductor chip. All of this will be enormously expensive. Even allowing for the fact that competition can be counted on to drive down costs, telecomputers of the sort described here will cost thousands of dollars each. When they finally become widely available, for example, digital high-definition television (HDTV) sets are likely to cost in the neighborhood of $5,000. To wire the nation with fiber-optic cable, add at least $1,000 per household, or a cool $100 billion for the whole country. That is not to mention the cost of wiring businesses, government of and nonprofit institutions. Sums of this size serve as reminders that, much as we like to think of the infohighway as the centerpiece of a ‘postindustrial’ era, building it will be a very old-fashioned capital-intensive undertaking. It will take a long time, and it will be very expensive.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Internet Appliances
Name of publication: The Wilson Quarterly
Title, headline, chapter name: In Search of the Cybermarket
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://weblinks2.epnet.com/citation.asp?tb=1&_ug=dbs+1+ln+en%2Dus+sid+AC7E3702%2DA800%2D48A5%2DBA0A%2DD61897A4410B%40Sessionmgr2+8FAF&_uh=btn+N+idb+afhish+jdb+afhjnh+op+phrase+ss+ID++WLQ+CC1F&_us=bs+JN++%22Wilson++Quarterly%22++and++DT++19940601+ds+JN++%22Wilson++Quarterly%22++and++DT++19940601+dstb+KS+fcl+Aut+ri+KAAACB1D00236175+sm+KS+F4D2&fn=1&rn=2
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Garrison, Betty