AV Technology - November/December 2008 - (Page 36)

OPINION use “cloud” services so that our information and even home computers are available everywhere. We’re starting to watch YouTube and expect broadcast television to be available on or over the ‘net, but it’s still television. But then, many of us are still at the stage where we think of the car as a horseless carriage. BECOMING AN EXPLORER Lately, we’ve been starting to venture out a little, but we’re not quite at the point where we wonder why a mobile device still called a “phone,” when telephony is just another application. It’s no surprise that we still think in terms of telephones and television because that’s all we know from traditional telecom. We still don’t treat our mobile devices as our digital agents who help us negotiate our way through an increasingly connected world. In fact, we still think of the internet in terms of computing devices and not as the basic infrastructure behind everyday objects such as light switches and traffic lights. But slowly we are starting to realize that the internet allows us to focus on the relationships between two end points, be they people or devices. We assume we can exchange messages between the endpoints while being resilient when we can’t connect. We look for nascent ideas like Amazon’s Kindle, where the contents of a book are simply “available.” THE INTERNET EVOLUTION Today’s internet is indeed a prototype — like a bicycle with training wheels. We can apply the end-to-end principle in creating solutions. We plug devices into the hotel’s internet connection and wonder why it doesn’t work until we realize that we’re up against those who equate the internet with “the web,” and require us to use a browser to make the connection as if we were placing a phone call. When we rearrange the furniture in our houses, we may start to wonder why we can’t simply move the light switch by simply redefining its relationship with the light. After all, why should you define the relationship by the wires in the house any more than you depend on a dedicated wire between your PC and a web site? For that matter, why is the internet something you access with your PC or “mobile”? Shouldn’t it simply be available anywhere with or without a wire? After all, bits don’t care whether they are wired or wirewww.avtechnologyonline.com latter term assumes someone is making sure that everything works, whereas end-to-end means we are concerned only with the endpoints, and not an operator’s network services. We took the principle behind Ethernet and applied it over any distance, and leveraged existing telecommunications networks. We couldn’t rely on the network operator to provide services, thus we had to discover what worked and what didn’t. This end-to-end constraint is what has given the internet its strength. By disallowing such dependencies, we’ve grown stronger. We had to wait for the internet to grow in order to be able to do voice over IP (VoIP), but today it’s just another service with cost above the raw cost of the bits. INTERNET TOURISTS We’re now at the point where we can pretty much assume that we can make an internet connection between any two points and expect it to work. We’re ready to visit the internet and take advantage of end-to-end connectivity. As tourists we needn’t be aware that today’s internet is only a prototype, and we are likely to confuse the internet with telecom. After all, a VoIP connection acts just like a phone call, so isn’t it the same? Yet even as tourists, we’ve dis- covered the possibilities of the web and created peer-to-peer applications. And we accepted that applications only worked if we also made sure we had a billing relationship with all providers along the path. This is the “broadband” model. We discovered that broadband is good for video. It’s a testament to the power of the endto-end principle that we’ve been able to rediscover that broadband is good for video. But it’s also a testament to our confusion that we haven’t been more frustrated by what we cannot do (like medical monitoring) because we can’t always presume even a low-speed connection away from home. As visitors, we embrace the web and create our own sites. We expect everyone to have email and build applications that take advantage of messaging. We can deploy services using software and host it on our own site or at a customer’s site. We can maintain and update applications even after we deliver them. Yet, for most people, the internet is still just the “e” version of the familiar. We e-shop at the e-mall, and we exchange email. “VoIP” is just another phone service. As visitors, we treat the internet as simply “the network,” and we are starting to build applications that call it home. We’re starting to 36 | AV TECHNOLOGY | november | december 2008 http://www.avtechnologyonline.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AV Technology - November/December 2008

AV Technology - November/December 2008 Contents Precedent Corporate: Finishing with Style Government: It’s Still About People Education: Surviving Budget Cuts Applying Metrics to AV ROI Selecting Room Scheduling Software Six Things You Need to Know About Webcasting The Way I See It: Becoming an Internet Native Casino Uses AV for Dramatic Impact Just What the Doctor Ordered The Loneliest Help Desk in Town Product Forum Product Spotlight Tech Horizons New Products Ad Index AV MO

AV Technology - November/December 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.