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.
Predictor: Bell, Gordon
Prediction, in context:In the keynote speech at InternetWorld 1995, pioneering computer scientist Gordon Bell, formerly of Digital Equipment Corporation and then a research leader at Microsoft, talks about institutions he expect will change or disappear due to the Internet: ”If you look at CDs, the question is which ones could be in a library instead of our having to own them? Which CDs can we get rid of by direct access? With more bandwidth, do we need CDs at all? One institution that I’d like to see change is the post office. Just look at what comes into our homes [through U.S. Postal delivery] and ask which ones are better distributed electronically? 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. I’ve invented BillFree which I’ve asked to trade mark. It’s the converse of CheckFree for bills. That is, 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.”
Biography:Gordon Bell proposed a plan for a U.S. research and education network in a 1987 report to the Office of Science and Technology in response to a congressional request by Al Gore. He was a technology leader at Digital Equipment Corporation (where he led the development of the VAX computer) and with Microsoft. (Technology Developer/Administrator)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: InternetWorld 1995 Conference
Title, headline, chapter name: It’s Bandwidth and Symmetry, Stupid!
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/IntWorld/tsld002.htm
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney