Hype List
1. Intelligent Agents
The computer industry has largely avoided AI research ever since the mid-1980s, when dozens of firms founded on the promise of expert systems went belly-up. But the current hype over intelligent agents – programs that will filter our news, automate repetitive tasks, and heck, who knows, even do our work for us – is leading a number of computer companies to stick a cautious toe in the water. Apple and Sun are both expending serious effort in this area – and beyond the glitzy videos some real products are becoming available. We may have finally found a home for all those unemployed AI post-docs.
2. Business on the Net
From the infamous "green card" posting to the pyramid schemes that won't go away, the Net is looking more like New York City and less like Pinedale, Wyoming, every day. Sure, we all knew that the Net was going to become more commercial, but it still is somehow unsettling to see your formerly pastoral town filled with new high-rises, billboards, and gawking tourists. What's strange is the mass media's portrayal of net.pioneers as a bunch of rabid anti-business hippies – as if most people are delighted with TV commercials and junk mail. Advertising may be inevitable, but it's still worth bitching about.
Position Last Month on List
Intelligent Agents 1 3 2 Business on the Net 2 - - Parallel Processing 3 - - Ephedrine 4 - - Distributed Objects 5 2 2
3. Off-the-Shelf Parallel Processing
That PCs and workstations have largely subsumed minis and mainframes has become proverbial; what is more interesting is what is now occurring with supercomputers. The economies of scale have resulted in PCs improving far more rapidly than supercomputers; the newest PowerPC chip is faster than a Cray-XMP. Many microprocessor vendors are now claiming that all you have to do is wire a bunch of processors together and you have the next generation of supercomputers. Intel has already discovered how difficult this really is. Watch for other vendors to also fall on their faces.
4. Ephedrine
With the rapid rise in methcathinone ("cat") availability, the authorities have mounted an offensive against ephedrine, the chemical precursor of cat as well as the main ingredient in asthma medication. Ephedrine has always been widely available in the form of "energizer pills," sold to truckers and college students who need slightly more kick than caffeine can offer. But the DEA is now cracking down on stores that sell the product with the help of new regulations and media scare reports that bill cat as "like crack but more powerful." The inevitable result has been an outbreak of ephedrine hoarding and higher prices.
5. Distributed Objects
Object-oriented programming is still confusing and poorly supported; good compilers and object-browsers are unavailable on most platforms. Yet the industry is now plunging toward the additional complexity of distributed objects, which allow objects to move and communicate between machines. The driving force behind this development is the belief that a microkernel operating system with distributed objects will be perfectly positioned to penetrate the set-top box market. Of course, capturing the set-top box market will have more to do with the name "Microsoft" than the technical elegance of any distributed object system.
Steve G. Steinberg
