Victims of a Horrible Tripod

One of the worst tripods in human history consists of Politics, War and Progress.

Politics and/or Progress bring about wars. Wars bring about Progress. But then, Politics don’t bring about Progress directly – so we can never do without the Wars themselves.

The basic trait is this: if everything is running smoothly, do not progress. If you progress you might cause an imbalance, which can bring about war.

The problem is that politics themselves create imbalance, which then begets wars. During war, progress is then made to recover the imbalance and become an equal to or better than your adversary.And war doesn’t have to be violent, full-bloodied war.

Let’s consider telecommunications.

The telephone is something that can be found in every household and transports audio from one location to another via telephone wires. This idea was used to transfer data across such wires – but telephony had fewer requirements than data and an analog medium was enough – not so for digital communications. The next step was to change the medium: we have ADSL, Cable and now mobile technologies.

Notice the Progress:

Transport audio from one location to another via analog telephone wires.
Transport data from one location to another via analog telephone wires.
Transport data from one location to another via digital cabling or wireless.

How long will it take to complete the last step and make it as popular, as a necessity, as the first step has become in our daily lives?

Politics.

Yes – what? Make large companies such as BT, Maltacom crumble just for the sake of progress? What about employment, what about shares, what about votes?

And yet, what do we see in “futuristic” films, Back to the Future II just to mention one? A “phone call” actually consists of seeing your boss on your wall TV screen and hearing him firing you… Ok it’s not something you would want but focus on the technology: 2-way communication on your TV screen.

Look at our current situation: a solution exists for Web browsing where one can use the existing slow phone line to send commands, or rather URLs of webpages or data that is then sent down the fast cable medium to one’s TV via an appropriate TV set box.
TV. Television. Remote Vision. Where is it right now? Traditionally, an aerial on your building receiving data in the form of radio waves. Fine. Cable Television. For a higher price you can get digital video from a large selection of channels. Next. Satellite receivers can hook up onto an orbiting geostationary satellite and download digital video and audio data.

Ok. All this deals with reception. What about transmission? We all know that reception cost is less than transmission cost: of course – there is more demand for reception than for transmission: you want to see a movie to relax, not take all the hassle to make even one scene!

Transmission: hey have you heard of the Internet? It’s really easy to use and you can have your own virtual webspace where you can explain yourself to your clients and provide means on how to buy from you online even!

Technical people will tell you: yes it is very easy to create a static webpage once and for all. But maintaining a dynamic one which changes regularly is an ardous task.

And anyway who mentioned commercial transmission? I just want to see how my grandmother is – she can’t even read let alone use the mouse!

Fine. Let me mention something else: a webcam. Do you know how cheap a webcam is? You have a video camera already – even better: get a TV capture card – works the same.

Well?

Let’s throw all this into the cauldron, say the magic word and see what comes out shall we?

Turn on your TV. Sit on your couch. Grab your multi-purpose remote control. Press the number of your grandmother on the remote control: 123456789. On your TV you see a view into your grandmother’s kitchen and you can see her brewing some of your favourite soup. You can even hear her radio set. You put your remote control to your mouth, just like a handset, and press the call button. You see her putting the ladle by the side, go over to the radio set and turn the volume down. You then see her heading for her remote control, she presses a flashing button and puts her remote control against her face and answers you.

Your call turned on the TV set and is showing you through the webcam you have installed on your mantelpiece. You wave to her and her face brightens. You chat a bit. You show her the latest drawing your two-year old son has made and she loves it. Then you see her twitching her nose, and she turns round to the cooker. She leaves the remote control on the cupboard. A button at the back of the remote turns the handset to a speakerphone and you can hear her turning the cookerhood on….

Sounds nice doesn’t it? Of course some issues arise:

The webcam can control who can (relatives, family doctor) and cannot (thieves, anyone) look through the webcam. Firewalls?

The webcam will act like a webserver, acting on a well-known port. The client for this server will be the TV top device, using some common protocol. VDTP? (Visual Data Transfer Protocol).

The remote control will be a specialized mobile, which interacts with the TV top. It will have:
· Digits to type in the number to call
· A button to switch the TV of the client onto your webcam ( requesting an audience)
· The audio transmitted is in sync with the webcam and TV top device.
· A button at the back so when it is laid down it becomes a speakerphone.

All this cannot be used only for calling grandma. Here are some ideas:

Security: check your house from your place of work
Training: attend instructor-led lessons from home
Video-conferencing: nothing new.
Interactive TV anyone? How many more phone-in shows do we have to see to feel such a need? Why separate TV and phone? Why not into one?
Customer care? Call them at home and see how they are doing?
Over-the-phone help? Forget it, now the customer can show you the “broken down” iron and you can see that the knob is turned wrong.

Evil side? Violence? Pornography? Yes evil tends to seep into everything – but now no 12-year old can fool you into being an adult – you can see him from the webcam!

No more blind dates – see how your date looks like before meeting up.

Want to see the weather in Scotland before you pack your luggage? Tune in to a public weather webcam and check for yourself.

Afraid of traffic jams? Take a look at the traffic webcam network and choose your best route.

Answering machines? Sure, now even with video…

The list is endless – it’s a whole new world.. but where and when is it? We have the means, we just have to pool them together. Who volunteers?