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From: hoetker@GSLISF.LIS.UIUC.EDU (Glenn Hoetker)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: re:Looking backwards
Message-ID: <9001102206.AA04989@gslisf.lis.uiuc.edu>
Date: 10 Jan 90 22:06:47 GMT
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A few thoughts on this subject (particularly fax) from Dr. N. Negroponte's
talk at the American Library Association's mid-winter meeting.  

     Fax has been an incredible step backwards.  People sit at their word-
processors and create computer-readable materials, then print it out in order
to turn it into a non-computer readable fax message! This will eventually either
change or be superceeded.

     The desktop metaphor will probably fail.  Just like a real desk, when a
computer desktop gets buried in material, you can't find anything.  Dr.
Negroponte gave this anology for his view of the future.  If you ask him
what the last letter from CLSI that he got was, he doesn't look though
his files or the stuff on his desk.  Instead he asks his secretary, who finds
it for him.  He predicts the rise of very personalized computer "surrogates"
on this model.  You might have a variety of surrogates, one knowing your
travel patterns, one your corresondence, and so forth.

    Disclaimer:  These are obviously my memories and my restatements of
Dr. Negroponte's talk.  No more than I've passed along, I'm pretty sure they
are completely accurate, if I've mis-stated him in any way, my apologies.