h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The internet is one step in the progression of the world toward integrated multimedia communication.

TV, telephone, satellite communication, digital media, together with the computer and the internet, will eventually combine to form one, seamless tool. There will be no phone, tv, computer, internet: it will all be part of one delivery system.

The display will have the quality of the TV and one unit will hang on your wall. TV 'broadcasting' will be streaming through this unit. The telephone will be accessed through a small portable connected [wirelessly] to the same unit. Your digital camera will plug into it as well and you will be able to edit the photos or video you take. A unit similar to your computer will provide portable data input and viewing. It will connect to the internet for email, shopping & other financial transactions, research, home office, research, entertainment.

--and probably much quicker than we think--

The components are all there, the technical 'kinks' just have to be worked out, and the economic parts coordinated. Ten years ago there was no such thing as a 'web economy', and the Guide could not have existed in the form we know it.

Ten years from now...

In a (buzz) word, convergence.
There is still the problem of working out how to intereact with all these new fangled tv/phone/computer hybrids.

As for the display having the quality of TV, I'd rather have a much higher resolution display (OK there is high res TV, but it's not really there)

Hi res TV display. That's what I meant to say. Or, more accurately, digital displays regardless of what kinda screen. Harder to do on big screen, but we're getting there. We've got several large screen displays that are thin, and a couple of ones that can hang on the wall. Now if they just didn't cost thousands of dollars. But just wait a bit, prices will fall. And the display will be high quality, no matter how big or small the screen is.

As to getting used to how they all work/interact. Consider that 10-year-olds today have never known a world without the internet. Adaptation will come, as the tools become more sophisticated, better integrated, and easier to use.

My grandparents saw the telephone evolve from a novelty into a necessity. We are watching the same thing happen to the whole telecommunications field. And it will change world society, just as the move from feudalism to modern countries changed world society. We are gonna end up with a world community. The world market that is evolving will make it a necessity, and the internet will make it possible.

Although we, as a race, will probably never learn how to program our VCRs...

Digital displays can be high or low res, depends on the display.
Big screen displays are hard to build. Very large panel displays at the moment seem to be plasma displays because it's easier to make those. LCD panels are currently limmited in size due to the way they're made, making big thin sheets of a suitable substrate for the underlying electronics is problematical (I could go into this at some length cos I have to know a bit about electronics for my job) - there are also problems at the moment with producing the glass substrates for the LCDs, so cost will go up in the near future
I have seen large screen thin TVs but as you say VERY expensive at the moment, I have also seen what look to be LCD panel TVs, and yes they to were expensive (I guess they were because I've never been into the shops and asked).

I'm sure that everyone will get used to how it will all interact, what I was trying to get at was that what will be the way we interact, keyboards and mice, pen based gizmos, speech, eye movement, thought?
I think something better than keyboards and mice will have to be come up with, though I don't know what it will be, and if I did I'd be working to make my fortune from it

I agree about the 'technical' considerations behind large screen displays, but even if we cant figger out how to do it today--tomorrow there will be a breakthrough that will make seemingly impossible technology possible [and affordable]. Think vacuum tube...

'Next Big Thing' for interfacing with computers????
Voice. It's gotta happen. And it IS happening. Dragon software [of course, hehehehe] is pretty well established in the business community as the current choice for speech recognition. And Macintosh OS 9 has a voiceprint password, right now. I saw Steve Jobs demonstrate it. Applescript has been used to for all kinda voice commands on the Mac, for the last few years. And if I was smart enough to write the scripts, I could make it do a whole buncha other things.

With online streaming video, by the way. I could never have gone in person, but I have been able to watch all the Mac rollouts for the last year online. The display leaves something to be desired, but it's sure better than reading about somebody else's fun trip to MacWorld. This kinda stuff is only going to get better, and the business world is gonna be driving it.

It's gonna be great!

Arrggggghhhhhhh, if the business world is driving it, given what we get today, most of it will be what they think that we as users want. Not necesarily what we do want. Lets just hope that there isn't going to be one monopolising company driving what's going on. Competition, choice, let the user decide (ah anti monoply rant over, I do feel better now )

Ack! that's not what I meant...I hope. My idea was that there is money in it, so business world will be interested. And lets face it, money is needed for technology to develop.

And just keep feeding apples to the penguins and eventually the balance of power will right itself. Or the 'one monopolising company' will collapse into itself from the weight of it's own code. [Sorta like a black hole or collapsing star or something]

And anyway there's no monopoly, just ask Bill Gates. Now if he could just convince the Justice Department...

Ok then I'll believe you that my idea of what you meant isn't what you thought you meant.
Indeed money is needed to develop things, I just hope that the businesses will listen to the users and develop things their users want and need, rather than what the business can develop and then sell.
Mmmmm, feeding penguins apples, nice idea, the only problem I have with the apple machines is that there are too few buttons on the mouse, I've got so used to using three button mice, what would I do with only one mouse button? That's not to say I wouldn't get an apple machine, I quite like the look of the newer powerbooks, just got to make sure the hardware is compatible with the OS I want to run on it, oh yes and find the money from somewhere....best get a job then

My one monopolising company wasn't (this time) directed towards the Bill Gates stock options vehicle, known as Microsoft, but at the idea that companies in general have to take over everything in a particular market to be a sucess, and my hope that eventually there will be choice in what you can run on computers, set top boxes, mobile phones etc, so people can make a choice based on their particular needs and wants.

From what I've read about US antitrust procedings, these things tend to take years before anything happens (check out the accounts of the battles between Standard Oil, AT&T and the others), so I'll continue on my way doing my bit for consumer choice, by supporting alternatives.