Subtopic: General

Should it really be unlawful to own a newspaper bit and a television bit in the same place? What if the newspaper bit is an elaboration of the TV bit in a complex, personalized multimedia information system? The consumer stands to benefit from having the bits commingle and the reporting be at various levels of depth and display quality. If current cross-ownership policies remain in existence, isn’t the American citizen being deprived of the richest possible information environment? We are shortchanging ourselves grotesquely if we forbid certain bits to commingle with others.

Take the weather as an example. Instead of broadcasting the weatherman and his proverbial maps and chart, think of sending a computer model of the weather. These bits arrive in your computer-TV and then you, at the receiving end, implicitly or explicitly use local computing intelligence to transform them into a voice report, a printed map, or an animated cartoon with your favorite Disney character. The smart TV set will do this in whatever way you want, maybe even depending on your disposition and mood at the moment. In this example, the broadcaster does not even know what the bits will turn into: video, audio, or print. You decide that. The bits leave the station as bits to be used and transformed in a variety of different ways, personalized by a variety of different computer programs, and archived or not as you see fit.

Bits are bits. The six o’clock news not only can be delivers when you want it, but it also can be edited for you and randomly accessed by you. If you want an old Humphery Bogart movie at 8:17 p.m., the telephone company can provide it over its twisted pair. Eventually when you watch a baseball game, you will be able to do so from any seat in the stadium or, for that matter, from the perspective of the baseball. These are the kinds of changes that come from being digital, as opposed to watching ‘Seinfeld’ at twice today’s resolution.

This kind of intelligence can live in two different places. It can live at the transmitter and behave as if you have your own staff writers – as if The New York Times were publishing a single newspaper tailored to your interests. In this first example, a small subset of bits have been selected especially for you. The bits are filtered, prepared, and delivered to you, perhaps to be printed in the home, perhaps to be viewed more interactively with an electronic display. The second example is one in which your news-editing system lives in the receiver and The New York Times broadcasts a very large number of bits, perhaps five thousand different stories, from which you appliance grabs a select few, depending on your interests, habits, or plans for that day. In this instance, the intelligence is in the receiver, and the dumb transmitter is indiscriminately sending all the bits to everyone. The future will not be one or the other, but both.