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What is it about Canada and its people that has
caused us to play such a significant role in the evolution of electronic
communications and media? Although there could be no shortage of thoughtful
theories on the subject, I have my own. Perhaps it is due to the vastness
of our country and a desire to use technology to overcome distance
and to build a community in a sparsely populated frontier.
Consider the early Canadian innovators and their inventions: Alexander
Graham Bell and the telephone and its network; Reginald Aubrey Fessenden
and the world’s first radio broadcasts; and Edward Rogers, Sr.
and the first alternating-current radio tube. Were these inventions
a reaction to circumstance and environment? Regardless of the motivation,
it would be difficult to dispute that these inventions, and the subsequent
development of the telecommunications and broadcasting industries,
have had a tremendous impact not only on Canada but on modern society
everywhere.
Historically, Canadians have also been leaders in understanding media
and its effect on society, as reflected in the seminal work of the
legendary Canadian communications theorists Harold Innis and Marshall
McLuhan. Today, Canadian researchers continue this tradition, taking
leading roles in exploring new forms of communication and media.
If we look closely at the world around us, new forms and configurations
of communication and media are in healthy evidence. Telephone companies
are now television networks. Internet providers have become media
developers. And software companies are cable television empires. Is
it just another sign of a modern world with little respect for traditional
boundaries? Not really. The explanation lies in one simple word: Convergence.
Convergence is the melding of previously segregated fields of computing,
telecommunications, and broadcasting. It’s a popular theme that
found new relevance in the 1990s as media and communications mergers
occurred in Canada and abroad. But the concept is not entirely new.
There has long been a convergence of sorts as technological infrastructure
has been unified and shared among seemingly unrelated fields. Need
examples? Just take a short trip back to the 20th Century.
In the analogue era, vacuum tube electronic systems were the basis
for both long line telephony and radio broadcasting. The telephone
industry initiated the move to digital in the 1950s with digital audio
transmission systems. And the transistor was invented by Bell Labs
and then used extensively in telephony, radio, television, and even
early computers. All these are prime examples of many different technologies
converging and laying the foundation for our modern world. And now,
at the beginning of the 21st Century, with digital technology the
common core for all three of these industries, and with the emergence
of large media/communications corporations, are we achieving the ultimate
convergence?
Before we can begin to deal with this question, a recounting of my
own journey is in order. My personal quest for convergence in my work
started in the early 1970s when I went searching for a university
that would allow me to study both engineering and music. Although
it was an almost impossible combination at most institutions, at Queen’s
University in Kingston they somehow shared my vision and saw only
potential. Dr. David McLay, a physics professor and Associate Dean
of Arts and Sciences at Queen’s, thought it was a splendid idea
and helped craft a special program of study that would combine my
interests. Of course it didn’t hurt that Dr. McLay was also a
musician. Five years later, I was armed with a B.Sc. in electrical
engineering and a B.A. in music. I had achieved my own particular
brand of convergence.
Upon graduation, I was fortunate to join Northern Telecom’s brand
new Digital Switching Division. In my new position as part of a multidisciplinary
research and development team, we developed and introduced the DMS
line of switching products—a range of fully digital circuit switches
that deliver local exchange and long distance services worldwide.
The magic of these products was to take analogue audio, convert it
into digital bits of information, and then use computer technology
to connect telephone calls. It was a truly innovative technology in
its convergence of audio media and digital computing. It became the
basis for the tremendous success that Nortel subsequently experienced,
allowing the company to become a major world telecommunications supplier.
And it happened right here in Canada.
Years later, for many consumers of modern technology looking to the
landmark inventions by Nortel, Bell, Fessenden, and Rogers, it may
appear that little has changed since then; that there is almost no
evidence of “convergence” in their daily lives as end users
of technology. After all, since most of us still use a telephone,
a radio, a television, a computer, and the Internet as purpose-built
devices, these individuals reason that nothing has changed in the
interaction between man and machine.
I suspected they were wrong. And it was this very suspicion that inspired
me to pursue graduate research in the 1980s. At the time I realized
that to discern how to combine some of these functions of technology,
I needed to know more about how humans interact with machines. The
answer for me was a doctoral program in information systems, with
a focus on human-computer interaction and research into the new forms
of end-user functional convergence. It ultimately led to a new career
as a professor and researcher, and to new forms of end-user functional
convergence.
The first of these took shape at the Rogers Communications Centre
at Ryerson University in Toronto, where we have been experimenting
with exciting new forms of Interactive Television (ITV). ITV combines
traditional one-way television with two-way enhancements to allow
viewers to engage in controlling, altering, or even creating content.
As exciting as the concept is, however, ITV has been a technology
looking for an audience for many years. Early ITV trials have used
cumbersome technology and crude programming resulting in interactivity
that was often facile. Today, ITV technology attempts to combine the
best of traditional television broadcasting with the full two-way
flexible form of interaction we have come to expect from computing
and the Internet. This combination attempts to provide rich full-motion
video, high-quality audio, and an Internet browser style of user navigation
and control. The result? New forms of end-user functional convergence
that provide more utility than simply viewing poor quality television
on a computer screen.
Read more about ITV challenges, benefits,
and developments.
Read more about how ITV could help
people with disabilities.
Technology, however, is not the only point of concern in this new
medium. There’s also the business side. A fully interactive,
two-way television environment has the potential to completely disrupt
existing revenue models for the broadcast industry. It may also change
the power relationship between content creators and formerly passive
content consumers. Devices such as personal video recorders (that
allow users to record television programming on a hard drive) threaten
the advertising revenue base of broadcasters by making it easier for
a viewer to pause real-time broadcasts and to fast-forward over commercial
content. Since early research indicates that viewers are receptive
to advertising if it is congruent with their interests and needs,
the solution to the potential threat posed by ITV may lie in the delivery
of smart advertising that is customized to match the individual viewer’s
profile and interests.
As with any new technology, especially one that brings together all
the known and unknown elements associated with convergence, ITV has
raised some questions. Can it provide more user control and shift
the broadcast power structure to the audience? Is there a role for
interactivity in telling linear stories? What is the financial model
for ITV? Is it viable? The answers will come as the technology develops
and is more widely implemented.
Another successful application of media technology to improve access
is an initiative called Providing Education by Bringing Learning Environments
to Students (PEBBLES). Headed by my Ryerson colleague Dr. Deb Fels,
PEBBLES is an innovative system that combines video conferencing and
robotics technologies to allow a student in a hospital to participate
in regular school activities. It also serves to alleviate the isolation
that these young patients experience in such situations. How does
it work? One component of PEBBLES is located in the classroom, and
the other is in the hospital. The school unit is a yellow child-sized,
egg-shaped robot. It is the student’s representative in the classroom
and transmits a live, audio-visual image (like a picture telephone)
of the classroom to the student in the hospital, and vice versa. PEBBLES
was developed by a joint research team from Ryerson University and
the University of Toronto, in conjunction with industrial partners,
and is another prime example of modern convergence at work.
The convergence of broadcast and the Internet is also affecting how
Canadians deliver education. As already outlined, ITV uses traditional
broadcast or cable systems to deliver video combined with a traditional
phone line or other channel for user input. However, all of the media
can now be delivered using a high bandwidth Internet, such as the
CANARIE CA-Net 4 network in Canada. This has the advantage of allowing
the participant to generate and send, as well as receive, high bandwidth
content such as video.
Ryerson University was a participant in the Wurcnet Knowledge Networking
Initiative, an innovative research project that used the CANARIE Network
(an Internet development organization headquartered in Ottawa) to
deliver a graduate university course to participants at six Canadian
universities—using video conferencing based on multicast backbone
(mBone) technology. Dr. David Mitchell at the University of Calgary
headed the project in which students and professors at each university
site actively participated with each other using high-quality video
links among the institutions. Responsibility for the lectures rotated
between the sites, and guest speakers were brought on-screen across
the country, providing graduate students with direct access to experts
in Canada and, potentially, from around the world. Considering the
size of Canada and its small population distributed across a vast
distance, the entire initiative was particularly attractive because
it would allow universities to collaborate and form the critical mass
of researchers and students necessary to mount world-class programs.
Many other active research projects using technology in education
promise to significantly affect how we will deliver education in this
country.
I firmly believe that two-way gigabit bandwidth network availability
will affect the power relationship between content developers and
content consumers. We have seen the evidence of this in the rapid
growth of Napster, the controversial and now defunct music-sharing
Web site, and other peer-to-peer Internet applications that have sprung
up to replace it. Today’s low- to medium-speed Internet connections
are well matched for delivering audio content, and the recording industry
has been the first affected by users freely sharing digital music
and ignoring intellectual property ownership and copyright.
Over the next while, higher-speed connections will allow peer-to-peer
sharing of much larger digital video (DVD) and other media files.
The free distribution of a first-run movie over the Internet moments
after its release is of concern to film and video producers. The threat
will provide rich areas for research in digital watermarking, copy
protection, and digital compression, not to mention the related ethical,
legal, social, and business issues.
Gigabit Internet technology also promises to change the way media
content is created and produced. Traditionally, the production of
video and film has been an expensive process using specialized teams
of people and equipment. Over high-speed networks, it will be possible
for individuals to work collaboratively and gain access to Internet-based
specialized production tools and services. This sharing of expertise
and technology could significantly lower the costs of production,
allowing a “desktop” production cottage industry to flourish.
Small independent creators with important stories to tell could obtain
shared access to state-of-the-art production tools and services for
editing, digital animation, and rendering and special effects from
their studios over inexpensive high-speed networks.
Many years after the first telephone, the first radio broadcast, and
the first alternating-current radio tube, it is clear that Canada’s
strong tradition of innovation in communications and media will continue
as the fields converge in the era of new media and the Internet. It
has been a thrill to participate in the Canadian communications industry,
and to witness the innovation and contributions to the field. Over
the next few years, world demand for media services is expected to
explode with the proliferation of wireless media devices, interactive
broadcasting, and high bandwidth Internet connections. I am certain
that Canada’s community of researchers can be expected to continue
to make significant contributions to the growth of these evolving
digital content and technology industries.
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