... for us, when compiling these columns, Negroponte deemed it impo rtant to re-examine and -as he says-'repurpose' many of his original ideas in light of what has changed in the short time since he originally wrote many of the Wired pieces. The result is a read that is often insightful, often madenning, and always provoc ative. In the first part he talks about the communication medium, and how information content is so much more important than bandwidth. If we would only transmit better-labelled bits, we could do so much more with the bandwidth we have today. More elaborately, on 'Bits are Bits' here, he reflects on the difference between bits and ato ...

... theory, “Information Flow in Large Communication Net.” This document presented the theory behind the first problem of the Internet, and how to solve it1. The problem was this: when a large document is sent then pieces of it become lost in transfer and the entire document has to be resent, but then different pieces are missing from the new copy of the document. This is a major problem and the obvious solution is to “chop” the information up into smaller pieces and then transmit the smaller pieces2. Then another problem was realized, how does the computer know where to put these small bits of information? The solution to that was what has come to be kno ...

... of what would now be called a general purpose, fully program-controlled, automatic mechanical digital computer. Babbage called this idea an Analytical Engine. The plans for this engine required an identical decimal computer operating on numbers of 50 decimal digits (or words) and having a storage capacity (memory) of 1,000 such digits. The machine was supposed to operate automatically, by steam power, and require only one person there. Babbage's computers were never finished. After Babbage, there was a temporary loss of interest in automatic digital computers. A strong need thus developed for a machine that could rapidly perform many repetitive calculations. ...

... mistakes. Computers are now creating their own programs. In the past there used to be some problems, now they are pretty much full proof. The Television and Film business has to keep up with the demands from the critics sitting back at home, they try and think of new ideas and ways in which to entertain the audiences. They have found that robotics interests people. With that have made many movies about robotics (e.g. Terminator, Star Wars, Jurassic Park ). Movie characters like the terminator would walk, talk and do actions by its self mimicking a human through the use of Artificial Intelligence. Movies and Television robots don't have Artificial Intelligenc ...

... systems, tell the time, and turn videocassette recorders on and off. Computers in automobiles regulate the flow of fuel, thereby increasing gas mileage. Computers also entertain, creating digitized sound on stereo systems or computer-animated features from a digitally encoded laser disc. Computer programs, or applications, exist to aid every level of education, from programs that teach simple addition or sentence construction to advanced calculus. Educators use computers to track grades and prepare notes; with computer-controlled projection units, they can add graphics, sound, and animation to their lectures. Computers are used extensively in scientific research t ...

... of the impact of computer mediated communication and, even among educationists, concerns are not confined exclusively to pedagogical and curriculum issues. It seems that what is on everyone's mind are questions of significant and permanent social change seeping into every crevasse of our everyday work and private lives. Many of the issues that are being raised today, and which I will sketch out here, deal with abstract notions about the virtual and `real', about time and space, about `body-less' interactions and communities of learners, and so forth. I hope, however, that I have brought together the diversity of research, current debates and issues in a concrete ...

... computers are getting easier to operate as we speak. William Gates said that microsoft's key role of Windows 95 was to make the operating system easier for the average person to operate. My grandma is a key example, she was born way before there was any PC's or networked offices. She remembers the big punchcard monsters that she would have to insert cards into to give it instructions. But my point is that she was not exposed to a computer as everyday life. Now she is really behind so to speak in the computing world. Computers back then were huge, they were usually stored in wharehouses. The earlier ones used paper with holes in them to give it instructions. Lat ...

... transmit images for television or facsimile systems. However, the first person that was known to have demonstrated image transmission through a bundle of optical fibers was a guy by the name of Heinrich Lamm whom which was a medical student at Munich. His goal was to be able to look inside inaccessible parts of the human body, and in a 1930 paper he reported transmitting the image of a light bulb filament through a short bundle. However the unclad fibers transmitted the images poorly, and the rise of the Nazis forced Lamm, a Jew, to move to the USA and give up his dream of becoming a professor of medicine. A lot of things have changed since then. Fiber optics has ...

... and other types of important data being taken. There are many advantages the Internet brings to its users, but there are also many problems with the Internet security, especially when dealing with personal security, business security, and the government involvement to protect the users. The Internet is a new, barely regulated frontier, and there are many reasons to be concerned with security. The same features that make the Internet so appealing such as interactivity, versatile communication, and customizability also make it an ideal way for someone to keep a careful watch on the user without them being aware of it (Lemmons 1). It may not seem like it but ...

... Since the data model determines the database language of the system, which in turn determines the implementation of the system, we can understand that the differences between the various systems with different data models can be big and substantial. Second is the common theoretical framework. Although there is no standard object-oriented model, most object-oriented database systems that are operational or under development today share a set of fundamental object-oriented concepts. Therefore the implementation issues in OODBMSs that arise due to these concepts are universal. The third characteristic is that of experimental activity. Plenty of prototypes have been imp ...