Successful Business Leadership

By Alan K Rudi

Digital convergence is the process by which all our separate media (television or radio, magazines or newspapers, books, CDs or DVDs) link directly to web pages and are produced digitally. Digital convergence allows the various media to interact with the Internet. It will require increased telecommunications bandwidth, greater computer processing speeds, smaller higher capacity data storage, and the design of devices to work seamlessly with each other and the Internet, and software that is simpler and more visually interactive.

Why and how is digital convergence developing rapidly? First, the cost to develop and produce digital content is significantly lower than that of conventional media, and is continuing to decrease. A new book can cost $25 (including the author’s time to write it, the production and delivery to bookstores). A visit to the movie theater costs about $10. When items like these, however, are produced and delivered as digital content, the manufacturing and distribution costs are basically eliminated. Second, the quality of digital content is superior to conventional media. HDTV is crystal clear and gives the viewer the sensation of actually being present in the scene. Digital content can simply be produced at higher resolutions, but require a greater amount of storage and transmission bandwidth (the bits/second through a fiber optic cable or wireless signal). Finally, telecommunications has approached the point where high-bandwidth transmission of digital information between any two locations or devices is transmitting billions of bytes at the speed of light.

Microsoft, therefore, describes its research goals as follows:

“We’re building the technology that will enable computers to see, listen, speak, and learn so people can interact with them as naturally as they interact with other people.

The computers of tomorrow will employ a unified interface that moves transparently between smart devices, software, and systems that people use, forming a connected, unified system that works on their behalf and under their control, and creating an environment of seamless computing. Seamless computing enhances personal and business connections through rich communication and powerful, flexible collaboration tools; helps diverse technologies, groups and organizations work together; and are flexible and intuitive enough to adapt to the ways people and companies want to work.

People are beginning to rely less on typed text as they gain the freedom to interact with computers in more natural ways, such as by using voice, handwriting, and touch. Microsoft envisions a time when people’s personal and business information will be stored securely on the Internet, synchronized automatically and available instantly to them—anytime, anyplace, and on any device.

Users’ interactions with technology would be much more natural if they could speak directly to a computer and write directly on the screen instead of being limited to the technical language of a PC or a handheld device. Microsoft researchers are enabling computers to interpret their surroundings more accurately and, as a result, to understand better and thereby assist in what he/she intends to do. Examples of this research include:

• Machine learning: The goal of this research is to enable computers to do a better job of understanding users and tasks, and to do a much better job of managing information, computing resources, assistance, and user attention.

• Natural language processing and speech recognition: Designing computer systems that can analyze, understand, and generate languages that humans use naturally is intended, eventually, to enable users to talk with a computer as though communicating with another person.

• Vision technology: Projects that range from image-based rendering and animation to human tracking and 3-D scene reconstruction will be important components of future user interfaces.

• Tele-presence: This research focuses on enabling computer users to feel as if they or others are present at an event—even while they are physically in another place or time—through the use of digital media such as video, audio, images, and animation.”