Multimedia: our modern day bard

Article Abstract:

Multimedia tools are of no use if they are too difficult to master. The benefits of the technology must be grasped in order for people to find meaningful applications. The human need for multimedia, and the ability of humans to take advantage of multimedia to achieve those ends needs to be analyzed. Storytelling is a human trait that was typical of Bronze-age Celtic bards who enthralled listeners with songs. Multimedia designers are linked to this heritage through hyperlinked text, sound and graphics. The storytelling has evolved from cave paintings to epic poems to soap operas and on to interactive CD-ROM and video laserdiscs. 'We Make Memories' is a collection of photographs from 1890 to the present with audio stories of the Abbe Don family on HyperCard on display at the Judah L. Magnus Museum in Berkeley, CA. Don had been searching for a media to preserve her family history and began to study optical disks and video on computer screens.

Usage, Innovations, Software, Exhibitions, Anthropology, Multimedia technology, Storytelling, Human Factors, User Interface, User-Friendliness, User interfaces (Computers), Judah L. Magnes Museum

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Visual, intelligent, and personal

Article Abstract:

Japan's Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Corp (NTT) is revolutionizing the concept of visual communication by seeking ways to take advantage of human perceptual capabilities and focusing on the role of visual perception in thought and communication. Japanese researchers seem to be more aware than Western scientists of the importance of visual thinking when planning communication systems because their written language and spoken communication style are very dependent on visual cues. NTT envisions a multimedia technology that combines high-speed, high-capacity communication channels with vast libraries of images, full-motion video, text, voice communications and computer-generated graphics for the 21st century. This vision guides the research and development of pipelines used to transport information that can turn hardware into a system for amplifying human thought and communication.

Product development, Japan, Industrial research, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Corp., Perception (Psychology), Research and Development, Perception, Visualization

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Filters are blinders

Article Abstract:

Communications technology creates innovations in the way humans receive information about the world, and dictates who receives what information and the speed with which that information is transmitted. Communities are created and bridged through telegraph, telephone, television, computer networks, and other devices that ultimately affect social interaction. The side effects of these trends remains undefined. The advent of selective communications through phone machines, caller identification and other filtering services also offers greater adaptability for weeding out information from and about people and things that we would rather ignore. The major question to ask is whether or not filtering services act as blinders. Decentralizing communications tools might offer a democratic way of spreading alternative versions of the news.

Trends, Future Technologies, Telecommunications Service, News

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