human-nets@ucbvax.ARPA (04/29/85)
From: Charles McGrew (The Moderator) <Human-Nets-Request@Rutgers> HUMAN-NETS Digest Wednesday, 24 Apr 1985 Volume 8 : Issue 15 Today's Topics: Queries - Telecommuting-electronic cottage & Home Computing Predictions, Computer Networks - Home computers on a Radio Network, Computers and People - Digital Utility Centers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu 11 Apr 85 14:49:56-PST From: Bill Guns <Guns@SRI-KL.ARPA> Subject: Telecommuting-electronic cottage For a friend... Mail-From: BIP created at 11-Apr-85 10:21:18 Date: Thu 11 Apr 85 10:21:18-PST From: Business Intelligence Program -- Menlo Park <BIP@SRI-KL.ARPA> Subject: TELECOMMUTING-ELECTRONIC COTTAGE cc: bip@SRI-KL.ARPA I'M DOING SOME RESEARCH ON TELECOMMUTING AND I'VE RUN ACROSS A REFERENCE TO AN "ASSOCIATION OF ELECTRONIC COTTAGERS". ALL I'VE FOUND OUT ABOUT IT SO FAR IS THAT IT HAS ABOUT 100 MEMBERS AND WAS FORMED LAST NOVEMBER. IF ANYONE OUT THERE CAN GIVE ME ANY INFORMATION ON THIS GROUP, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. REPLY TO BIP@SRI-KL. TODD SHAREK SRI INTERNATIONAL THANK YOU! ------------------------------ Date: Wed 17 Apr 85 23:51:08-PST From: Paul Saffo <SAFFO@SU-SCORE.ARPA> Subject: Possible listing I am attempting to make some sense out of where "home computing" (defined broadly) is headed in the next five years. Popular commentators offer little help because of their reluctance to speak in any but the greatest generalities, so I am trying a different approach:I am collecting predictions of *specific* uses/applications/appliances that current users believe we will see in the home in 1990. Examples include: a flat screen icebox family message board, (imagine playing video games on it--the icemaker could shoot ice at you when you lose...) touch screen telephones, interactive laser disk game systems and home banking systems that include the capability to purchase lottery tickets. Please help me add to the list. I will share the results with anyone who is interested. Paul Saffo (Saffo@SU-SCORE) 780 Roble Ave, #4 Menlo Park, Ca 94025 ------------------------------ Date: Thu 11 Apr 85 16:51:30-EST From: Ralph W. Hyre Jr. <RALPHW@MIT-XX.ARPA> Subject: Using home computers to capture useful information. Here at MIT we are building a new kind of information system which uses a digital broadcast channel to disseminate information from various sources, including newswires and the ARPAnet. (In fact, human-nets is one of the ARPAnet bboards we are distributing.) The system is called the Boston Community Information System. The digital broadcast channel is an FM subcarrier, which provides a 4.8kb data rate. Users of the system use a personal computer to monitor the information coming over the channel. The computer saves any information that the user has expressed a preference in. For example, the user would type '#section sports' to collect the sports section from the newswire, or 'olivia newton john' to keep articles with any reference to olivia newton-john. Work is proceeding on a two-way system which will provide transparent access to the complete database available on our host computer. This will allow access to information that you have not told your computer to collect, such as movie reviews or Mexican restaurant menus. For more information about this system, please send a request to: Rebecca Bisbee 545 Technology Square, Room 403 Cambridge, MA 02139 If your need is less urgent, papers have been submitted for publication, and I will post submit the references as they become available. - Ralph Hyre ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 1985 01:05 EST (Fri) From: Wayne McGuire <MDC.WAYNE%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA> To: Stephen Wolff <steve@BRL-TGR.ARPA> Subject: Digital Utility Centers (HND:8#13) Yes, the D'Ignazio passage from Compute! was seriously blemished by ugly and sometimes ridiculous journalistic huffing and puffing (Compute! seems to be editorially directed mostly at junior high school students with Christmas Commodores), and yet he still managed to put his finger on a few important issues with an imaginative directness that has mostly eluded the more technologically judicious. It's beginning to look like the home computer market has collapsed in a fairly spectacular way, leaving a number of major companies badly burned; perhaps home computers truly will suffer the fate of videogames a few years ago. D'Ignazio suggests that current personal microcomputer technology is still in the stone age, and will have to evolve significantly in power--especially as a component in sophisticated videotex systems--before it becomes, like television and telephony, a fixture in the home. Do you disagree? It's surprising that the sages at IBM, who are presumably immune to journalistic tomfoolery, didn't realize that there isn't an enthusiastic mass market for $1000 paperweights. ------------------------------ End of HUMAN-NETS Digest ************************