An Emerging
Digital Trend:
LIVING IN THE AGE OF THE ELECTRONIC PROXY
As we close down 1998 and begin the final year of the only century that most of us have
lived through, it’s interesting to take stock of where electronic communications are
taking us. At first computer users found ways to send files and programs to one another
via modem, and text-based e-mail was used by the scientific elite.
But now electronic channels carry much more than that. Advertisers can send sound clips
and video clips by e-mail. Whole publications are sent using PDF files that print out
crisp and precise replicas of the print document produced at the sender’s location.
Video conferencing and web conferencing allow remote teams to collaborate in real time
with one another. Smart card technology empowers end users to receive coupons and pay for
transactions at the swipe of a card or the wave of a wristwatch.
Electronic channels allow us to transport images of ourselves, our money, our
documents, our voices. Using these digital impressions our publications can be shot around
the world by e-mail, our faces and our voices can greet business contacts half way around
the world, our maladies can be viewed by a specialist in a foreign country.
There’s the real human and then the digital "extensions" of this person.
We’ve gone from file transfers to electronic proxies that represent us and even
become tangible entities in other locations.
I’ve gathered a collection of stories this month that illustrate this.
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Asians, like their Western counterparts, are now moving away from the traditional
"print and distribute" paradigm to the more popular "distribute and
print," a recent report from the International Data Corporation (IDC) indicates.
According to IDC, Asian companies now prefer to send documents electronically because
this saves them time and money. The report notes that companies are realizing that
photocopying documents and physically distributing them to people is "too costly and
slow."
Vincent Vanderpoel, country manager of Hewlett-Packard Philippines Corp., commercial
channels organization, cited the IDC findings when the company recently launched some 29
products to the Philippine market.
Vanderpoel pointed out that companies today recognize that electronic distribution of
information is quicker, more cost-effective, and that networked peripherals are imperative
to enable the shift to "print on demand."
Businesses are beginning to take advantage of the power of desktop printers, he
asserted. Some organizations in China are now recommending that the printing of documents
be done only when necessary. Such practice, he noted, saves organizations the ex-pense of
storing copies that could go "unused."
Meanwhile, Tan Ah Beng, Asia-Pacific commercial inkjet product manager for HP Far East
Pte Ltd., predicted that more and more end-users will be "printing" information
from their desktop. As such, they will soon be requiring printing solutions that can
deliver "quality" documents.
Vanderpoel also stressed that businesses will require more convenient, flexible,
easy-to-use desktop tools that can help them manage the flood of information and help them
communicate, share, and store data seamlessly across electronic and paper media.
HP is responding with its latest HP JetPath technology, which essentially eliminates
difficulties of compatibility and eventually allows users to connect any office
peripherals, such as a scanner and a copier, to the printer.
HP’s JetPath is a suite of technologies that transforms a personal printer to an
"intelligent" device. The technology is currently available on the HP
La-serJet
1100 printer. With JetPath, the LaserJet 1100 can be upgraded to a printer-copier-scanner
by simply conec-ting copier/scanner accessories to it.
Meanwhile, Beng predicted that in the next five years, around 70 percent of information
used in businesses will be digital-based. Will this mean the advent of a paperless
business environment? No, says HP. "While information is going digital-based, this
does not mean that there will be a reduction in the demand for printers. There will still
be a demand," Beng explained, citing that while only 30 percent of information in the
next five years will be paper-based, this volume would still be large due to the
exponential growth of delivered information.
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A Gartner Group survey shows nearly all companies who buy video-conferencing systems
claim they experience a pay back in "hard" cost savings of less than 18 months.
Three-quarters said the pay back was less than a year.
"Hard" costs reflect specific tasks such as minimizing travel and speeding
decision making. "Soft" savings are from intangible benefits in the
organization.
The survey was funded by Picture Tel, which claims 80 percent of the video-conferencing
market in Australia and New Zealand. Managing director, Gordon Makryllos says: "The
majority of our users are seeing significant im-provements in the way they conduct their
businesses and substantial in-creases in productivity and profitability."
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PictureTel has launched MedLink, an interactive telemedicine workstation designed for
operating rooms, critical care units, specialist and casualty departments.
MedLink is a mobile video conferencing workstation that is specifically designed for
use in a medical environment. It offers a high-resolution monitor that provides broadcast
quality images and a wireless microphone enabling natural speech and hands-free operation.
The system integrates data from multiple medical devices and separately or
simultaneously transmits medical data such as patient records and tests. The unit is
sealed hermetically to protect it from liquids commonly found in clinical settings
"Medical professionals can now easily and cost-effectively deploy video
conferencing to remotely interview patients, conduct physical examinations with live feed
from medical monitors and machines, look at x-rays and conduct interactive medical
consultancy briefing, from anywhere in the world," said George Ni, PictureTel’s
managing director for Asia.
PictureTel MedLink is network independent and operates over ISDN, leased-line and local
area networks.
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The humble credit card in your pocket will be changing in the next few years from
magnetic stripe to smart card-based. Because of this, Visa is getting excited about the
prospects for interaction between its Visa credit and debit cards, and the imminent
arrival of Internet set-top boxes (STBs) within the same time frame as its smart card Visa
cards.
Visa International has become sufficiently enthused by the prospect to sign a
memorandum of understanding with General Instrument Corp. Terms of the deal will allow
GI’s broadband digital network system to accept Visa branded multi-function smart
cards.
In the coming months, Visa and GI plan to undertake a number of joint activities,
including prototype development and market testing. According to company officials, GI
will provide the network infrastructure and STBs for the trials, while Visa will ensure
that the systems architecture can.
The move forms part of Visa’s ongoing open platform for smart cards and does not
preclude similar deals with all broadband Internet STB companies.
Visa has already agreed with the European Technical Standards Institute (ETSI) to use
the Visa open platform as a basis for specifications to enable smart cards to be loaded
with applications via GSM (global system for mobile communications) mobile phones.
According to Philip Yen, Visa’s sen-ior vice president for emerging products, a
truly open standard for smart card technology must be developed that benefits not only the
financial sector, but the entire smart card industry. To date, only a handful of Visa card
issuers — excluding France — have implemented trials of the technology.
Despite this, however, the plan is for Visa and GI to explore ways to integrate payment
and other interactive services into Visa multi-function smart cards, GI’s interactive
digital STBs, and digital network hardware plus software.
According to Yen, Visa cardholders will have potential access to a variety of
interactive services, such as TV-shopping, pay-per-view using Visa cash, home banking and
the ability to use a Visa smart card over a digital TV network.
"One example would be to download special offers or coupons from a TV
advertisement onto your Visa smart card. As long as there are common standards, the scope
to develop new applications is almost limitless," he explained.
GI will provide network infrastructure and STBs for trials, while Visa will en-sure
that systems architecture can pro-cess payment and other smart card services conveniently
and securely.
GIC’s Web site is at http://www.gic.com.
Visa’s Web site is at http://www.visa.com.
(Contact: Visa International 650-432-4671)
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A joint initiative by Schlumberger, the smart card firm, and Swatch, the fashion watch
company, means that bus users in Tampere, a Finnish city, have been able to, quite
literally, wave their watches as they board the bus rather than deal with money to pay for
their ticket.
The project revolves around the integration of Schlumberger’s contactless smart
card technology into a next generation watch being manufactured by Swatch. Travelers in
the city of Tampere can buy watches which operate in exactly the same way as the
contactless Schlumberger Easypass ticketing card employed by the city’s bus network.
According to Swatch, the e-watch ticketing and payment system has massive
possibilities, since its Swatch e-watch is compatible with ISO14443A, the wireless
protocol which accounts for some 90 percent of all the world’s contactless electronic
ticket applications.
Work is continuing at Swatch on its e-watch project, and the second generation of
e-watches are now under development. These, the company says, are actually equipped with
their own operating system, based on the transport-oriented Schlumberger FastOS smart card
operating system. A Swatch watch with these capabilities could provide its owner with an
electronic passport for traveling and paying for goods and services.
Swatch says it is integrating an Easypass-compatible chip inside the body of the Swatch
watch and connected to an aerial located around the edge of the face.
Finland is now progressing towards the creation of a country-wide e-ticketing system
known as Matkahoulto, which will allow e-ticket users to board trains, buses and subways,
using their e-card or e-watch.
Schlumberger’s Web site is at http://www.slb.com.
(Contact: Isabelle Marand, Schlumber-ger +33-1-4746-5542; Amanda Blair, Swatch
+41-32-343-9093)
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