Hype List
Mosaic
If you want to be anybody on the Net nowadays, you have to run your own Mosaic server. Here's how: First, laboriously scan in garish images from magazines and album covers, then add hypertext links to every other server you know of (in hopes the favor will be returned), and finally add just a drop of content - say, the complete lyrics to "Raw Power." Now sit back and watch users connect to the server. Heck, some may even wait the five minutes it takes to download the home page and its accompanying graphics. Mosaic is the 1990s equivalent of forcing friends to sit through slides of your trip to Florida - painful for everyone but the host.
Video games
It should be no surprise that video game sales are reaching a plateau - after all, there are only so many teenage males - but many game companies are stubbornly insisting that the next generation of game systems will get sales booming again. The problem is that the graphics of the new systems aren't all that revolutionary - 3DO games are boring even when you're stoned. If video games are going to attract a larger audience they will need to change drastically. Two possible directions are VR and networked games, but the required technology and infrastructure won't be available for some time.
Position Last Month on List
Mosaic 1 3 2 Video Games 2 - - Intellectual property 3 - - ADSL 4 - - Telecommuting 5 - -
Intellectual property
People in the computer industry like to think that what they do is unique and historically unprecedented. This largely mistaken belief is the cause for much of the current shrill debate on software patents, with both those who believe patents are crucial to the industry and those who believe patents will cause irreparable harm claiming that the unique nature of software requires sweeping changes in US intellectual property laws. The boring truth is that similar problems have arisen (such as industrial design patents and music copyrights) and have been solved within the existing framework. The problem isn't the much-maligned patent office, it's people's egos.
ADSL
Asymmetrical digital subscriber line technology (using compression to squeeze multiple video signals down a standard phone line) is being hyped as the phone companies' secret weapon against cable, but I'm convinced the hype is funded by the copper industry. Surely phone companies don't think consumers will put up with the poor-quality video signals of ADSL when most of us already have coax (with far greater bandwidth) coming into our homes. Stop delaying: We want fiber to the home, and we want it now.
Telecommuting
Since 1973, when the word was first coined, telecommuting has been alternately hyped and trashed. Initially embraced as part of the shiny new future predicted by Toffler and McLuhan, it was then knocked as unrealistic during the high-pressure 1980s. Now, experts point to anti-pollution laws and two-career families as the driving forces behind telecommuting's resurgence. While the Clean Air Act may cause a small increase in telecommuting, most employees still believe that physical visibility is necessary for promotions, and this will keep telecommuting from catching on.
Steve G. Steinberg
