Re: New 3D business opportunity -- let's get rick quick!!

[P3D Gregory J. Wageman <gjw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike Kersenbrock replied:

>Assuming it's using something reasonable (someday) like a PCMCIA RAM
>interface or maybe firewire, "downloading" should be near instantaneous.

OK, granted.

>"Cropping and windowing the keepers" should be instantaneous for 
>"standard shots".

>From a user's perspective, they'd attach their "image-card" to the computer
>and immediately look at the resultant "mounted" images.  Even images
>that have close-up subjects can have pre-set "corrections" so most common 
>out-of-the-ordinary abberations to infinity-mounting can be corrected by 
>hitting a single keystroke (like hitting a digit 1~9 indicating the number
>of feet to the closest object).  Real fast and brain-free. 

Also eminently feasible.  "Oh brave new world, that hath such wonders
in it..." :-)

>> Well, let me put it this way.  I can play an LP record with a pin and
>> a paper cone.  Can you do this with a CD?  Will anyone remember how
>> to play back an audio CD in 100 years?  (I'd add "Will anyone care",

>As many as will play a LP with a pin and a paper cone.  Does anyone
>look at stereo-cards that are a hundred years old?  Yup!  Do 
>people find it interesting?  Yup.  Lots and lots of old stereo photographs
>are published in non-3D historical books with only one "side" printed.

You miss the point.  The ability to look at a stereoview or play back
an LP can NEVER become "lost technology" because in the stereoview's
case, NO technology is required, and in the LP's case, almost no tech
is required.

You CANNOT read a CD without at least a laser and a fairly sophisticated
playback system.  Even if the KNOWLEDGE of how to build such a system
doesn't become lost (and I'm not betting it won't), what's the likelyhood
of any CD players still working in 100 years, when the current medium
of storage is holographic data cubes with a million times the storage
density of CD-ROM, or some such?

If I handed you a deck of IBM 029 punch cards, which are a heckuva lot
less than 100 years old, could you read them quickly and easily?  Can
you locate a working card reader?  Would you be motivated to try, if
you hadn't a clue what was on them?

>In any case, being digital it can be converted (probably by the consumer)
>to future formats when the new format comes about.  Much in the way that
>the Library of Congress and other groups are digitizing old books and
>photographs now.  I'm scanning some of my and my wife's old kid pictures
>too.

But what about those image discs that get relegated to an attic somewhere,
just like those Kodachromes did in 1950, and never DO get transferred?
You're assuming that people will take a proactive part in preserving their
history.  History itself suggests otherwise.  Oh sure, important stuff will
be transferred.  That's the job of a library.  But I'm talking about the
"Aunt Mildred of tomorrow" here.

>> Will you be able to retrieve those proprietary PhotoCD images in 100 years,

>Yes undoubtedly.  I'll betcha another quarter!

I'm nowhere nearly as sure.  I'll take that bet.

>Although I live in Oregon, I'm not a back-to-minimialistic-nature
>person. I think the technical infrastructure will survive and grow.

I agree.  And in 100 years, today's technology will seem unbelievably
primitive, so primitive that most people won't even recognize it for
what it is.  CDs will be the equivalent of Egyption hieroglyphs before
the Rosetta stone (i.e. a fascinating curiousity from the ancient
past that no one has a clue how to read).  Except that it won't even
be obvious that they *are* writing of some sort.

>People will always be able to "hack" things, but that which they "hack"
>won't stay constant.

As technology progresses, people's ability to hack will be restricted
to more and more primitive technologies (relatively speaking).  People
used to be able to construct relatively state-of-the-art projects at
home, when state-of-the-art was transistor technology (remember Heathkit?).
Now it's ASICs, and I don't know too many people who hack ASICs at home,
even here in "Silicon Valley".  As tech advances faster and further, the
gap will only continue to widen.  If peoples' knowlege was keeping up
with technology (or even maintaining the same distance), we'd have
kids today with wafer fabs in their garages.  Instead, many of them
can't even read.

	-Greg W.



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