Hype List
1. High-Tech Outrage
What makes Net users so vociferous about obscure technical issues? Everything from the Pentium chip to the GIF copyright to the urban legend about an FCC-imposed "modem tax" has prompted massive net.outcries. The Net itself is part of the problem. Because replies can take days to appear, one message can incite hundreds of others before flames can be cooled with the facts. But the more fundamental problem is that experienced Net users are beginning to feel like a beleaguered-lite: under attack by commercial forces and a growing popularity, they feel the need to make their independence known.
2. Smart Homes
Technologists have been predicting smart homes, capable of making breakfast when we wake and turning down the heat when we sleep, since the 1940s. Unfortunately, the first prototypes of the late '70s, when microelectronics became cheap and pervasive, were so primitive and difficult to use that they indelibly taint the phrase "smart home." Nonetheless, as technology continues to invade the home, a battle for the home-automation market is brewing. Three competing organizations are proposing communications protocols for home appliances. Whether the appliances have anything to say to each other, however, remains unclear.
3. Voice Recognition
According to many computer-industry experts, 1995 is the year of voice recognition. New processors can finally provide the horsepower for this task. The question now is whether software designers can find compelling uses for the technology. Most systems simply use voice recognition to trigger menu commands. So unless you normally have your hands full, it's not much of a win - it just annoys your neighbors. Besides, being able to recognize voice just makes a computer's inability to understand speech that much more obvious.
4. The Return of Mainframes
Mainframes fell out of fashion for the same reasons that cars from Detroit did. The monoliths came to be seen as old-fashioned and clunky. Experts claimed "client/server" solutions would cost less, adapt quickly to changing needs, and speed software development. Yet these systems were plagued with unreliability, breakdowns, and other problems. A steadily building chorus of voices is arguing that maybe mainframes aren't all bad. It's a sound that is buoying IBM's spirits and bottom line.
5. HDTV
The US broadcasting industry is beginning to panic now that HDTV has failed to catch on in both Japan and Europe. Worried that prettier pictures won't sell HDTV, it is being touted as a digital transport system, a flexible wireless communication service for everything from e-mail to stock quotes. The discussion is incredibly premature, considering the unresolved technical issues, not to mention regulatory roadblocks. It also assumes - probably wrongly - that there are more people interested in wireless online service than in watching Star Trek in high resolution.
Steve G. Steinberg (hype-list@wired.com)
