Page M2 April25,1990. This Week FUTURE WATCH Lightning can look slow in comparison... One hundred and fifty years ago the Pony Express had a booming business. Prior to the start of the legendary communi- cations company (although at the time they didn’t realize that’s what they were) it was sometimes taking six months to get a letter from New York to San Francisco, due mainly to the long trip around the tip of South America. Even overland, via covered wagon took three months. And, that was for the lucky ones that made it and didn’t get knocked off in the Indian wars. DEIOMOrow By FRANK OGDEN It appeared that the Pony Express had done everything right. At the end of their first 15 months they already had established the legend that still exists. Everyone knew they had the best horses (they had paid the best price), the best riders (for the same rea- son) and their system was doing the impossible: moving mail from the Mississippi to the west coast in days, not months or years. In many ways, except for the equip- ment used, they were like some of today’s rapidly grow- ing communications compa- nies. They had the best. sys- tem of its kind anywhere. Then Samuel Morse came out with the telegraph. In 90 days the Pony Express went bankrupt for two million U.S. dollars, the largest corporate failure of the times. Today, especially in Canada, with our out-dated tower of Babel called the Canadian Radio & Television Communi- cations Commission, an ana- chronistic process moves slowly through the bureau- OUTSTANDING VALUE 42 SUITE CONDOMINIUM floors Poured In Place Reinforced Concrete Construction Elford House e New High Tech Reinforced Concrete Construction e Luxurious 45 oz. Saxony Plush wall-to-wall and marble e Insuite Laundry with 5 appliances * Great Location on Bus Route. Near Jubilee and Shopping e Video Remote Security and Parking e Games Room & Workshop cratic maze. Two giants move their armies towards a battle- field that has already shown it’s operating in another time and space. Bell Telephone and its allies are aching to get into the cable and entertainment busi- ness and Rogers Cable and their supporters are about to plead anything to establish a competitive phone service. Bell is equally convinced they must stop such an advance at once, and move into the cable field themselves, the quicker the better. Meanwhile the communications age unfolds according to plan. A plan that includes the ultimate law of order: chaos! Known to but a few, a pro- cess 1S under development through the Advanced Tech- nology Group of Apple Com- puter in Cupertino, California that would allow real time video, via decompression and transmission, to be transmit- ted over what is known as ordinary, copper twisted pair cables, (the same as leads into your house now). It has been the conventional belief, even by those in the phone indus- try, that real video could not be sent over ordinary phone lines because of the wide band width required for television. However, many small ad- vances in computer technolo-_ gy have given the home com- — ‘puter screen, far better, pic-. ture resolution than tradi- tional TV screens. Also soft- ware programs utilizing an- other Apple development known as HyperCard have permitted a deck of “cards” to flash rapidly on the screen; something like the old-style cartoon cards that you hand- flicked through to express mo- tion. Only the HyperCard cards could be of high resolu- tion. With film shot and pro- jected at 24 frames a second, and video at 30 frames a second, this was not that hard a target to attain. (In the future: SuperScan at 60 frames a second, the speed at which the eye perceives original four inch size! In my computer now I have that famous “Sports Ilustrat- ed” swimming suit color pos- ter of Cheryl Tiegs. It is in - compressed format to save storage space in my hard drive. When called up the reality. Won't advertisers just love that?) Now what happens to the “clash of the titans” when a new technology is released that allows the old pipeline (phonelines) to carry more than previously believed pos- sible. And, because they have the software that makes it” ‘possible, another player now holds the trump card? How can it work? Say you have a four inch square sponge. Won’t fit in a three inch pipe, right? But what if you could squeeze that sponge into a dot that was, say one- tenth of an inch diameter — and round! And when it pop- ped out the other end of the pipe it sprang back to its compressed picture expands and fills the screen. Really fills it. A battery of such pic- tures, with the flow stream commencing through phone lines, say one minute before the show appears on TV, could have subsequent picture flows having 60 seconds each to expand before having to ap- pear in their respective places in the show. A computer/ de- vice called a genlock, plus a “frame grabber’ enables moy- ing anything on computer to anything on TV, or visa versa. Ergo, motion pictures. Over the phone line! Moral: Since economic de- ath flew on swift wings 150 years ago, think how much — quicker it could happen today! Best Locations Available Now!! Move in June and July Prices from $149,900 2 BR, 2 Bath 1075 Sq.Ft. to 1210 Sq.Ft. and Balcony Call For Information: 385-4663 (24 hrs.) LEARN TO DRIVE. ONE-ON-ONE. Phone for information and brochures. to drive. At Young Drivers of defensive driver training in North America. We'll do more than help you get your licence. We'll teach you everything you need to know to drive accident-free. 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