Table of Contents

1. Introduction 1

The Evolution of Digital Technologies 5
The Dawn of Computing 8
The Mainframe Era 9
Power to the PC 11
Digital Convergence 13
Digital Convergence and You 17
Human Interaction 17
Appeal 19
Opportunities 20
Empowering Individuals, Entrepreneurs, and Corporate Workgroups 22
Success Stories 24
Overcome the Barriers and Kick Some Buttl 27

2. Conventional Technologies 31

Why Isn't This a Web Site? 32
Waves, Electrons, and Magnetism 35
Waves 35
Sound 36
Light 37
Creating Color 38
Electrons 40
Electrons and Magnetism 40
Radio Waves 41
The Telephone 42
Printing 44
Photography 46
Motion Pictures 47
Television 50
Recording and Editing Audio and Video on Magnetic Tape 53
A Foundation for Digital Technologies 56

3. How Digital Does It Differently 57

The Digital Domain 58
Digital Coding and Capture 60
The Digital Domain--Strengths and Benefits 66
Obstacles and Opportunities 71
Complexity 71
The Data Volume Problem 73
Where Are the Opportunities? 75

4. Computing 79

The Evolving Computer Architecture 81
Mainframe Computing 81
The Personal Computer 82
LAN and WAN 83
Client/Server 85
Internet Computing 87
What's Next? 89
The Personal Computer 90
Processor 93
Memory 94
Buses, Ports, and Serial Interfaces 95
Video and Sound 97
Network Access 98
Disk Storage 99
Operating Systems 100
A Word About Notebooks 102
Servers 103

5. Digital Communications Technology 107

Types of Networks 108
Voice 108
Broadcast 110
Computer 111
Digital Computer Network Layers 113
Physical Network Layers 115
Network Transport Layers 122
Network Application Layers 124
Ip Everywhere! 126
Obstacles 127

6. Digital Multimedia 137

Images 139
Scanners 139
Digital Cameras 141
PhotoCD and PhotoNet 144
Image Formats 144
Editing and Creating Images 145
Audio 147
Audio Formats 148
Editing and Creating Audio 149
Video 151
Video Capture Technologies 151
Digital Video Formats 153
Editing Digital Video 154
Third-Party Media 155
Putting It All Together 156
Compression 157

7. Digital Convergence Technologies 161

Compression Technology for the Network 162
Image Compression 162
Audio and Video Compression 163
What About Motion JPEG? 166
Multimedia Frameworks 167
The World Wide Web 170
What is the World Wide Web? 171
Web Extensions 172
Creating a Web Site 174
Internet Streaming Media 178
How It Works 178
On Demand vs. "Live Broadcast" and Unicast vs. Multicast 180
Videoconferencing 183
Internet Telephony 187
Message-Based Communication 190
Email 190
Groupware 193
Chat 193
Push Technology 195
Digital Television 197

8. Select and Implement 201

Commit to Continuous Learning 202
Follow the Evolution of Promising
Technologies 209
Technological Maturity 212
Selecting and Implementing 217
Product Selection 217
The Pilot 219
Organizational Considerations 220
Implementation 220
Final Thoughts 223
Active or Passive 223
Here's To The Little Guy 226

Index 229