―162― J. Soc. Photogr. Sci. Technol. Japan, Vol.59, No.1, 1996

The Impact of Multimedia on Society, Science, and Technology

James C. OWENS*

Abstract The development and application of digital technology has brought fundamental change to the imaging and communications industries . As did earlier milestones in communications technology , it is giving rise to significant and unexpected shifts in society as a whole, and in particular to the careers of scientists and engineers. The impact of digital technology on all of the many industries making use of chemical photography is growing rapidly , especially in publishing and printing, where revolutionary changes have already occurred. This paper outlines some of these trends with special attention to the changes occurring in the roles and functions of professional societies such as the SPSTJ and IS& T .

1. The new technology phic printer, containing in a single replace- able cartridge all of the writer engine com- During the last fifteen years, the development ponents requiring periodic renewal. of microprocessors, software, and peripherals ● The Adobe Postscript page description lan- has expanded the application of digital elec- guage (1982) , enabling the creation of tronics from its initial use in computation to printer- resolution- independent document control systems for everything from spacecraft files. to hair dryers, to communications, and finally to ● The Kodak Photo CD system (1991) , provid- imaging systems. The key elements of the new ing high- quality film scanning at low cost, digital imaging and communication technology convenient image storage on CD- ROM , and are powerful, inexpensive personal computers; color management. sophisticated application and operating system ● Lucasfilms and Industrial Light and Magic , software having easy- to- use graphical user inter- introducing the extensive use of digital spe- faces; imaging peripherals such as electronic cial effects in motion pictures (1980s) , and cameras, scanners, CD- ROM writers and the Kodak Cineon system (1992), which readers, and color printers that are high enough made them widely available. in quality for commercial work, but low enough ● The ARPAnet (1969) , based on the concept in cost for small businesses and even individuals of packet switching, and its development to purchase; networks, both local area/ wide using TCP/ IP protocols into the Internet area and the ubiquitous Internet ; and convenient (mid- 1980s) and, with the further addition of software such as the Web browsers Netscape servers, URL addresses, and hypertext , into and Mosaic for access to them. the World Wide Web (1993). Some of the most important milestones in the The introduction of the Apple Macintosh in development of the technology are: 1984, with its easy and intuitive operation , con- ● Timesharing on remote mainframes (late sistent application interface, and reliable periph- 1960s). eral interaction, marked the beginning of wide- ● The Xerox Alto (1975) and the Macintosh spread use of the new digital technology for (1984), the first desktop computers to have imaging. Since that time the capabilities of graphical user interfaces and mouse control. digital systems have increased about 100- fold per ● The Canon LBP- CX laser printer (1984), the decade at constant selling price, while the prices first compact and low- cost electrophotogra- of low- end, but still useful, systems have dropped * President , The Society for Imaging Science and Technology. Imaging Research and Advance Development Laboratories , Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York 14650- 1822 , USA The Impact of Multimedia on Society, Vol.59, No.1, 1996 Science, and Technology ―163― enough that they have become commonplace. that "We are now in a period of multimedia It was clear at the 1995 Fall COMDEX (COM- incunabula"- meaning that we are at a stage puter Distributors' EXposition) trade show that analogous to that of printing before 1500, a high- end multimedia capabilities such as full- period when the conventions, formats, and screen, full- motion video display, high- resolution design of printed books were still under develop- image processing, and full audio functionality ment. Large companies are working to stan- are becoming available on standard $2000 home dardize network elements and protocols for computers. Color printers giving images of near- internal use and to standardize software such as photographic quality are available for a few CAD systems, so that data can be exchanged hundred dollars. Video capture, however, is not internally and with suppliers. Businesses of all yet included in these low- cost systems. kinds are trying to deal with issues of security, Negroponte,1 Adam,2 and Hafner 3 have recent- copyright, effective delivery of information to ly described the growth in personal computing customers, and procedures for charging for ser- and use of the Internet from different points of vices. Publishers are trying to decide how best view. A few of the striking examples they give to present text; electronic documents permit are: key- word searching, and hypertext is a clever ● Between 30% and 70% of the homes in the implementation of linking, but for someone seri- United States now have a personal com- ously reading a technical paper, a video display puter. is still a poor substitute for a printed document. ● The number of computers connected to the 2. Its impact on society Internet is about 7 million, the total number having access to the Internet, including 2.1 The individual those using commercial providers or dial- up The first level of impact is on the individual: connections, is estimated to be 20 to 30 greater access to knowledge, increased capabil- million. ity, and potentially higher productivity. Indi- ● The number of subscribers to commercial viduals now have the capability at their desks or network services is growing very rapidly, at home to carry out sophisticated numerical America Online grew from 500,000 sub- calculations and mathematical analyses, create scribers to 3 million in one year. graphics, and create and edit images; to obtain ● The total number of active users of the information from remote computers; to Internet is growing at 10% per month and is exchange information with other workers,not approaching several hundred million; Ne- only in the same organization but anywhere in groponte estimates that the total number the world; and to create finished documents making use of it may reach 1 billion by the containing text, graphics, and color images that end of the decade. can be printed at their desks or sent electronical- The present state of development of the tech- ly to a high- volume, high- quality printer. They nology is, of course, uneven. The hardware- can also create complex multimedia documents computers, printers, etc.- is generally the most incorporating video images and sound, store fully developed of the system elements. Com- them on CD- ROM, or distribute them puter peripherals, and in particular, scanners, electronically over a network. storage devices, and printers, have undergone The impact on an individual's productivity in spectacular improvement in the last few years. his workplace is equally dramatic and probably Network interconnections are still relatively even more important. Examples are a scientist cumbersome and slow, but the software has im- using a computer with software such as proved enough that they are surprisingly reliable LabView as a tool for laboratory research, a and useable. The least developed element is the commercial photographer using a "digital dark- skill of users in knowing how to use these new room" such as the one shown in Fig. 1 instead of tools to communicate in new ways. Davis 4 has a conventional photographic darkroom, or a remarked that "We are using the computer to prepress technician using a similar digital sys- pave the cowpath." He goes on to describe the tem instead of a conventional graphic arts photo- current situation more specifically by stating graphic and stripping workshop. ―164― James C. OWENS J. Soc. Photogr. Sci. Technol. Japan

one of the remarkable developments was the number of low- end packages offered for videoconferencing, providing software, a cam- era, and connectivity (but not a PC) for about $1000/ seat, a price that is dropping rapidly. These changes in communications, along with related changes in the core technologies of imag- ing, are leading to far-reaching changes in com- pany scale and organization. As can be seen from the Silicon Valley paradigm, exemplified by the clusters of small technical companies appearing almost everywhere (often encouraged Fig. 1 A "digital darkroom," the Kodak Professional PCD Imaging Workstation 4200 system, consist- by financial incentives offered local govern- ing, from left to right, of a dye diffusion thermal ments) , small groups and even individuals can transfer printer, a 35 mm film scanner, a computer now establish viable businesses dealing with and display, and a CD- ROM writer. information, technology, and electronics, and they can compete or collaborate with large, A remarkable example of the usefulness of well-established companies in almost any field digital communications for individuals has been other than large- scale manufacturing or market- the development of Linux,5 a freeware computer ing. operating system that performs like Unix, but 2.3 The communication industries does not come from the same source code base. The third level of impact of the new technol- One might expect that a complex operating sys- ogy, and especially of the new flexibility and tem could only be developed by a tightly orga- immediacy of communication, will be on how nized team in a single organization, like the AT communication occurs in society as a whole and & T group that developed Unix. Linux, how- how the industries involved are driven to change. ever, was developed entirely through the collabo- Table 1 summarizes our current mechanisms for ration of interested volunteers in several communication. different countries, communicating and exchang- The telephone was a revolutionary invention ing sections of program code using the Internet, allowing instantaneous and interactive voice testing it and adding further extensions and communication and, extended in the 1990s by the drivers on their own computers. widespread use of facsimile, it replaced much 2.2 The organization mail service. Radio and television broadcast- The second level of impact is on the scale of ing widened the span of simultaneous communi- organizations. In the past, successful organiza- cation and added images, but they were not tions often had to be large in order to have interactive media. The importance of the new, effective control over all stages of development, flexible networks, such as the Internet, is that production, and sales. Even so, there were seri- they are not unidirectional providers of prepared ous problems of internal communication. entertainment or information, but the precursors Today, the use of e- mail and other digital com- of flexibly addressable, interactive, image- munications is linking directly together not only capable systems that combine and extend all the islands of computers behind company "firewalls" earlier systems. The existence of these net- but also different companies and organizations works is forcing society to reexamine what of all sizes. At the 1995 Fall COMDEX show, information is, as well as how it is requested,

Table 1 Existing communication modalities. The Impact of Multimedia on Societ ―165― Vol.59, No.1, 1996 Science, and Technology delivered, and paid for. the future is that what is now broadcast will be In the past, different communication media delivered by fiber optic cable, and what is now and services were quite distinct. Telephone delivered by wire or cable will be broadcast. companies were regulated monopolies that were The constraint here is the limited bandwidth allowed to charge higher rates for data transmis- physically available for free-space RF broad- sion than for voice. Broadcasting was entirely casting because of mutual interference. The distinct from telephones in function and in hard- closed environment of fiber optic cable not only ware, at least until the advent of cable television. permits much greater bandwidth because the Printed newspapers, magazines, and books were physical limitations of atmospheric wave propa- again the basis of an entirely separate industry. gation are removed, but even more important, It has now become clear that all these media of the same carrier frequency can be used to trans- communication are really only distinguished by mit different information on different cables the physical form of their output rather than by without interference. The argument is, then, their content. Negroponte' describes this by that free-space broadcasting should only be used saying that in the past, information providers for communication with someone whose location sold "atoms"- physical media such as photo- is not known, a service partially provided by graphs and books- while we now realize that cellular telephones today, while communication the information is really encoded in the digital to fixed locations, such as delivering television "bits" and is only represented in one particular programs to homes, should be done using fiber. way by the "atoms." A stream of bits transmit- 3. Impact on the imaging industry ted over a network might represent a spread- sheet, a book, a picture, a song, or a movie; there The imaging industry today is divided into is no way to differentiate them until the recipient reasonably distinct application areas: consumer reads the file header and chooses the form they photography, professional and commercial pho- are to be delivered in. It is not the particular tography, motion pictures and television, medi- devices that are the key, but the services to be cal imaging, aerial imaging and remote sensing, provided. This understanding is the reason why printing and publishing, microfilm and business producers and distributors of information such imaging, office copying, etc. For each, the pho- as movie producers, broadcasters, telephone tographic industry provides the "atoms"- companies, cable companies, and publishers, as hardware such as cameras and printers; film, well as the manufacturers of hardware and paper, and chemicals ; and services such as media such as the photographic companies, are developing and printing. Our customers, which working so hard to formulate plans for the future may be other businesses or the ultimate con- interactive distribution of their information and sumer, provide the "bits"- the content that gives how to charge for it. the final product its value. A casualty of this rethinking process is the 3.1 Consumer and professional photogra- original proposal for analog HDTV, which has phy failed to replace conventional television and has Today's photographic systems are based on been replaced by the recent agreement on stan- the complex and sophisticated photochemistry dards for the Advanced Television System, a and organic chemistry that has been developed digital and far more flexible concept. A single, over the past 150 years. This is a closely held 6-MHz channel carrying 20 Mb/ sec can provide and proprietary technology that works very well one HDTV- resolution program, several NTSC for applications in which simplicity of image programs, or a mixture of NTSC and interactive capture and display are of paramount impor- communication channels. It is clear that this tance. The success of single- use cameras has flexibility of services will be more desirable to reemphasized the importance of simple, inexpen- customers and more potentially profitable to sive image capture for consumers. In addition providers than using the same bandwidth merely to this, photography has a number of real advan- to deliver conventional programming at higher tages: low cost, large dynamic range, high spa- resolution. tial resolution, and high image quality. An even more interesting speculation about It has, however, some classical "subject fail- ―166― James C. OWENS J. Soc. Photogr. Sci. Tec ol. Japan ure" problems: underexposure, wide- latitude or bimodal scenes, print color balance. It does not give the user immediate access to the images, although the Polaroid instant photography sys- tem and the more recent Fuji Pictrostat and Pictrography systems, all using silver halide chemistry, made dramatic reductions in access time and opened new applications. Finally, tra- ditional photography is not very flexible, and some of its most important strengths, such as integral image storage and a human-readable format, make it difficult for the user to modify, Fig. 2 The Kodak XLS 8600 PS thermal printer. combine, store, retrieve, and transmit the images. traditional optical photofinishing services, walk- "Hybrid" imaging systems , in which the cam- up sites for editing and printing such as the era's film image is scanned and converted to Kodak Creation Station kiosk, home editing and digital form for computer editing before it is printing using multimedia-capable computers, printed on photographic paper (or by a different home editing followed by electronic transmis- non- impact process) , or fully digital systems sion to high-quality printing facilities, etc. Out- using electronic cameras and printers without put will probably remain on silver halide paper using any silver halide film or paper, offer pos- for high-quality prints at low cost, but increas- sible solutions to these problems of convenience ingly prints will be made using dye diffusion and image quality. Many electronic cameras thermal transfer, ink jet, and color electrophoto- are now available, priced from $500 for low- end graphic printers for reasons of convenience, consumer cameras to $40,000 for professional speed, and larger color gamut. Of the elec- models. The inexpensive ones offer conve- tronic printers, dye diffusion thermal printers nience, but at a significant sacrifice in image such as the one shown in Fig. 2 give the highest quality compared with film, especially notice- quality continuous-tone photographic prints, but able in loss of resolution and in the color arti- at rather low speed and high media cost. facts produced by their small single- CCD sensors In addition to flexibility and speed, another using a color filter array (CFA) . Expensive beneficial effect of this change to hybrid systems professional cameras having three NTSC- is quality : as today's complex, integral chemical resolution CCDs, one for each color, or one systems are supplemented and supplanted. by multimegapixel CCD with a CFA, or, for station- modular ones, the system elements can be sepa- ary subjects, a mechanically- scanned trilinear rately designed for best performance for a par- RGB array CCD, can provide excellent quality, ticular function rather than having to give especially if the scene is carefully lit so that the acceptable performance within the constraints exposure dynamic range is not too large. It is of an integral system. This should lead to still true today that the exposure latitude of higher overall system performance in the hands electronic cameras, while giving excellent image of knowledgeable users. quality, is less than that of film. Although elec- 3.2 Publishing and printing tronic cameras can provide images in low-light- The advent of the CD-ROM and of the Internet level conditions by increasing electronic does not mean the end of the book; if anything, amplification, the associated noise gives a publishing and printing are more vital than significant reduction in image quality. ever.' A revolutionary restructuring and On the output side, photofinishing also has new expansion of this industry, which comprises pro- options. Ueda foresaw a number of these possi- fessional and commercial photographers, pub- bilities ten years ago,6 and correctly predicted lishers of all kinds, prepress service bureaus, and how electronic capture, processing, and display printers, has already occurred. would merge with photography. In the future In photojournalism, electronic cameras and marketplace there will be a changing mixture of laptop computers such as shown in Fig. 3 now The Impact of Multimedia on Society, Vol.59, No.1, 1996 Science, and Technology ―167―

ing and page composition, as well as the systems for raster image processing using new halftoning algorithms, are more flexible, much lower in cost, and, most important, much more reliable and robust than the first generation of electronic prepress systems. For proofing and printing, dry marking technologies (not requiring wet photochemical processing), often combined with laser thermal writers using high- powered diode lasers, are at the forefront. For proofing, ink jet, dye diffusion thermal transfer, and laser thermal transfer printers offer different levels of speed and quality appropriate for direct digital proofing at different stages during the production process. Even for the final printing process there is a choice of several convenient and flexi- ble technologies for short- run color printing. Least expensive are copier- based systems such as those from Canon and Scitex/ Xerox. For Fig. 3 The Kodak Digital Science DC40 camera with a throughput rates of 1000 to 2000 prints/ hour, the laptop computer. Xeikon and Indigo systems were the first to demonstrate that color electrophotography could produce high-quality color images at high speeds. With fast enough electronics, these printers even allow variable data to be printed on each page. For higher speeds and longer press runs yet, the Heidelberg GTO- DI direct- to- press system, using Presstek laser thermal writ- ing and plate technology, was the first to show that conventional color presses could be used in a quick-turnaround mode. MAN Roland now offers two systems in which the plates are writ- Fig. 4 The Kodak Professional RFS 2035 Plus film scan- ten on the press, the first a digital gravure system ner for 35 mm negatives and transparencies. and the second a digital lithographic system in which the plates can be erased and rewritten. make possible the immediate transmission of The latest version of the Heidelberg press, the images via modem and cellular telephone to a QuickMaster DI, requires only 12 minutes to newspaper publisher for equally immediate elec- write the four color plates and then to come up tronic page makeup without waiting for film to full- speed operation at 20,000 pages/ hour. processing and scanning. Compare this with the situation of a color sepa- Prepress operations are carried out with rator working with a camera in the late 1970s, Macintosh-based open systems using the Post- when making five film separations a shift was a script page description language and a variety of major accomplishment! new peripheral devices. For example, high- A good review of short- run color printing tech- quality film scanning no longer requires a large, nology has been given by De Schamphelaere, 8 expensive drum scanner and skilled operator; and more general reviews of current graphic arts Mills has remarked that the Kodak Photo CD technology by Gibbs' and by Hannaford. 10 film scanners such as the one shown in Fig. 4 Traditional publishing and printing firms are "have done for color printing what happened in adopting the new technologies to shorten pre- typesetting fifteen years ago."4 press time and to improve turnaround on short Today's systems for sophisticated image edit- press runs in order to provide "printing on ―168― James C. OWENS J. Soc. Photogr. Sci. Technol. Japan

demand." A more unexpected and striking mance has been redefined to provide the key occurrence is that the content creators, commer- advantages of digital imaging at lower cost. cial photographers and advertising agencies, are Hospitals have long desired electronic systems doing more of the image editing and prepress for radiographic and ultrasonic image archiving, operations themselves, while new small firms transmission, and display for remote diagnosis. such as electronic prepress service bureaus, spe- The image quality requirements for tone repro- cialty magazine publishers, and quickprint duction and freedom from artifacts in soft tissue shops, are appearing and taking advantage of radiography, and for resolution in mammogra- the new business opportunities made possible by phy, are very high, and it was generally believed the new methods. Even small organizations that only the highest quality video systems such as the IS& T are not using traditional would be acceptable. Cost considerations made publishers as they did in the past but are now this impossible. Hence systems have been built carrying out the prepress operations for their in which not the full image but only limited areas journals, conference proceedings books, and of it, with careful calibration and scaling, are other publications in-house, then going to a transmitted. Even though not all of the original quickprint firm having a Xerox Docutech, image is visible, useful remote diagnosis can still Kodak LionHeart, or color electrophotographic be accomplished. printing system for the final printing and binding Finally, there are significant organizational, of all but their archival journals. manufacturing, and profitability concerns for the 3.3 Barriers companies providing the "atoms" of electronic There are, of course, barriers to conversion imaging. Although content providers such as from traditional to new methods. Some of them the entertainment companies (motion pictures are: and television) and specialty publishers ar ● Cost of new capital equipment healthy, the well-publicized recent financial ● Concern about rapid obsolescence of digital problems, restructurings, layoffs, and divestitur- hardware es at such companies as duPont, Agfa, and 3M ● Requirement for developing a new workflow show that managing hardware and media sys- in the organization tems successfully is not easy. It is difficult and ● Training staff skilled in the earlier technol- probably impossible to maintain the same profit ogy margins on electronic systems as on traditional ● Higher media cost photochemical media. Understanding the cus- ● Image quality concerns: artifacts, color tomers' needs, low-cost manufacturing, and the matching, the "digital look" ability to cope with rapid technological change New technologies usually require an extended are key requirements. period of development. Early users of graphic 4. Impact on scientists and engineers arts prepress systems, for example, were often disappointed and sometimes enraged by un- The development of computer science and of expected limitations and unforeseen costs. Pro- digital imaging technology is not only changing viding "media agility," meaning matching the the definitions of imaging businesses but also, as appearance of documents and images captured we have seen, the way companies operate; dow- or printed by different processes, has been espe- nsizing and reengineering have become the cially difficult. This problem has resulted in the catchwords of the 1990s. For scientists and formation of the InterColor Consortium to work engineers in any given company, the important out procedures for color management. Never- questions are: theless, the real opportunities for improved crea- ● What core technologies will still be devel- tivity, control, and performance have continued oped internally to drive the development of electronic systems, ● What technologies will be purchased or even though users have sometimes had to com- brought in from a partner promise in unexpected ways. ● What technical skills will be needed to Medical radiographic imaging is an interest- develop or to manage the acquisition of ing case in which traditional imaging perfor- these technologies The Impact of Multimedia on Society, Vol.59, No.1, 1996 Science, and Technology ―169―

● How to obtain the continuing education tinue with our ink jet example, the company required for continued employability assembling and selling the printer might make ● What new kinds of information employees only the print head and custom electronics, while will need buying the mechanism, inks, and paper from Today's photographic systems are analog and outside suppliers or partners. It might have use complex chemistry for the functions of only a relatively small staff of electronic and image capture, image processing, and optical mechanical engineers to do print head design, of display. Color reproduction, for example, has image scientists and computer scientists to cre- been the job of the chemists who selected the ate the dithering and color control algorithms, capture primaries (the spectral sensitizing and of system and manufacturing engineers to dyes), the image processing (the interlayer inter- ensure overall coordination. image effect chemistry), and the display pri- Scientists and engineers are already seeing maries (the image dyes). The new digital companies becoming more specialized and more imaging systems are, however, modular rather focused on core technologies and product devel- than integral; the steps of capture, processing, opment, less willing to support broad technology and display are separate; each may be partially research internally, and less stable. Fewer chemical and partially digital, and they will be PhDs are being hired ; more BS engineers and based more on physics, electronics, computer high-level technicians instead. Companies will science, and physical chemistry than on organic probably undergo rapid changes in technology chemistry. For example, consider a system priorities and will have frequent reorganiza- using an electronic camera and an ink jet printer. tions. Technical employees will continue to Chemists will develop the dyes and pigments for need sound, basic, trustworthy, reviewed techni- the inks, which specify the output color gamut, cal information for their current projects, such and any special receiving media, but system tone as is provided today by articles in archival jour- and color reproduction is now the job of the nals, but higher priority will be given to immedi- image scientists and computer scientists who ately applicable information on new technology, develop and implement the image processing new patents, and new products. In order to algorithms. The main responsibility of the remain employable and employed in the longer chemist is now primarily in physical chemistry, term, they will need continuing technical educa- ensuring that the rheology of the ink and its tion at a deeper level from short courses and interactions with the print head and paper are training assignments as well as nontechnical correct. information on business, industry, and emplo- The first effect of this change is obvious: a ment trends and opportunities and on financial shift of core technologies partially away from concerns such as portable pension and health chemistry and toward the physical and mathe- care plans. matical sciences. 5. Impact on professional societies The second effect to be expected is that there will be much more rapid changes in imaging In the past, professional technical societies systems as new technologies develop and new were associations of degree- holding scientists modules, especially for hard copy output, are and engineers sharing common technical inter- developed. The industry itself will probably ests, the societies usually being defined by the become modularized, with the major imaging academic departments in which their members companies looking to smaller, more specialized had been trained. Societies were run by volun- companies for subsystems and new technology, teers, supported by small paid staffs, and their the larger companies maintaining internal primary functions were to publish archival jour- research and development staffs only to support nals containing reviewed articles of lasting their core technologies and to oversee technical importance, to hold conferences, and to recog- coordination with outside partners and suppliers. nize outstanding achievement by their members. A good description of the events leading up to They could depend on long- term members to pay the painful downsizings of research at IBM and dues, present papers at conferences, write jour- AT& T has been given by Fowler." To con- nal articles, participate in local chapter and ―170― James C. OWENS J. Soc. Photogr. Sci. Technol. Japan technical subgroup activities, and to provide subgroups; conversely, small societies are col- volunteer support on committees, as conference laborating and will probably merge (slowly) to chairs, as journal editors, and as Society officers. form similar associations. New specialties and This is no longer true. The fraction of scien- application areas that in the past would not have tists and engineers belonging to societies is fall- been considered appropriate are being added. ing, and it is not uncommon for societies to find For example, the American Chemical Society that their absolute membership is also falling. now includes polymer science and materials sci- Instead of traditional membership organizations, ence in its journals and meetings. societies are now more accurately described as The future is clear: societies must become nonprofit, tax- exempt organizations having cli- providers of a variety of information services, ents for a variety of unbundled information ser- emphasizing current topical information, educa- vices and having paying participants in a variety tion for newcomers to the field, and reviews of of professional meetings and activities. Atten- important scientific and technological develop- dance is strong and growing at specialized topi- ments. Society publications must include tech- cal conferences such as the IS& T International nical magazines and newsletters containing Congress on Advances in Non- Impact Printing timely, practical information in addition to the Technologies and the IS& T/ SID Color Imaging traditional reviewed journals. In some respects Conference. It is also strong at larger, but still societies will operate like for- profit publishing topical, engineering conferences having exhibits, houses, but they have the additional responsibil- such as the IS& T/ SPIE Electronic Imaging: ity to review and screen information in order to Science and Technology Conference. It is note- separate mere news and marketing from new worthy that the attendees at both kinds of meet- information of technical significance. Some ings are not a consistent group from year to year, large societies already offer insurance, credit but rather a core of long- term participants plus a card, and other member services; probably all large, always- changing mix of transient atten- will eventually offer support for members' career dees. This is one of the predictable effects of and employment concerns. They will expand the changes in company operations discussed their political activities as far as their nonprofit earlier. Attendance at more practical applica- status will allow; for example, the IEEE and tions conferences held in conjunction with trade ACS have lobbied Congress for portable pen- shows is stable but smaller. Attendance at sions, and a number of societies are now lobby- broad, general conferences emphasizing ing against proposed cutbacks in Government research, however, is declining rapidly. support of research. Conferences are particu- It appears that the opportunity for interaction larly important because they provide opportu- with peers working on similar projects at other nities for obtaining all of the above kinds of universities and companies is highly valued, both information as well as opportunities for networ- for technical exchange and for building relation- king and, if the conference has an exhibit or is ships with possible collaborators and partners, held in conjunction with a trade show, product but that attendees are quite satisfied to pay the and business information. higher nonmember registration fees and have Current society information and, eventually, little interest in the other mailings, activities, all society publications will become available and benefits of society membership. Journals, on- line on the Internet for searching, browsing, for example, are declining; fewer and fewer downloading, and ordering hard copies. The IS members are willing to pay for subscriptions to & T home page, available at the URL http:// traditional journals, and even the number of www.imaging.soc, provides Society information library subscriptions is decreasing because fewer and journal information as well as conference library users are asking for them. It is programs, abstracts, and registration forms. significant that the contributions to several well- The first page of this document is is shown in known American journals now come primarily Fig. 5. The IS& T plans in the future to include from outside the USA. the full text of conference papers, journal arti- Large, academically oriented societies are cles, magazine articles, and perhaps access to fragmenting into associations of special interest other information as well. Its staff is currently The Impact of Multimedia on Society, Vol.59, No.1, 1996 Science, and Technology ―171―

continually be replaced by more powerful and less expensive desktop equipment. Today' s large, vertically integrated com- panies can remain strong in systems develop- ment and marketing because they understand the applications, their customers' needs, and The Society for Imaging Science& Technology workflow issues, but the structure, technologies, MAIN MENU and focus of their research and development ● I nformation on IS& T activities are changing. ● Information about IS& T by Subject Scientific and technical personnel will remain ● Conferences, Technical Programs,Short Courses

● Publications Catalog at the center of discovery, development, and

● Journal of Imaging Science& Technology application of the new technologies, of course, ● Journal of Electronic Imaging but the technical specialties needed will increas- ● Emplyment Opportunities ingly include the physical sciences, computer science, image science, and materials science in addition to chemistry. Their traditional role of research and invention will continue to be cen- tral in universities, small companies, and small Fig. 5 The first page of the IS& T World Wide Web home page. groups within larger companies, but most of them will have jobs that are more focused on working on procedures for formatting, billing, system integration, development, and manufac- and security. turing. Employment security will continue to decrease. For all of these reasons, they will 6. Summary have new and pressing needs for information and The digital imaging/ multimedia/ Internet rev- support. olution of low- cost computing, communication, Professional societies, composed of technical and imaging is well under way. The second people and directed by volunteer members, con- generation of technology, using open architec- tinue to have a role and credibility not provided tures and desktop equipment, has already re- by any other type of organization. They will placed the first generation of electronic imaging not disappear but will change in appropriate systems from only a few years earlier. ways to better serve the new needs for informa- Traditional imaging technologies will remain tion, interaction, and support of today's and in use for many years because of their robust- tomorrow' s members, participants, and clients. ness, low cost, high image quality, and high References productivity for many applications, especially as hybrid systems in which digital stages supple- 1. N. Negroponte, Being Digital, Knopf, New York, ment the basic chemical elements and processes. 1995,Ch. 1. 2. J. A. Adam,"Upgrading the Internet," IEEE Spec- However, for applications in which flexibility of trum, 32, 24 29 (1995). image capture, editing, transmission, or printing 3. K. Hafner,"The Creators," Wired, 2.12, 152-155 are key issues, where rapid response and high (1994). productivity are vital, or where the new technol- 4. L. M. Davis, plenary lecture, IS& T/ SPIE Sympo- ogies open new business opportunities, cus- sium on Electronic Imaging: Science and Technol- tomers and vendors will drive a rapid transition ogy, San Jose, CA, Feb. 1, 1993. from traditional analog chemical imaging to 5. See the Linux Journal. A general information docu- ment can be obtained using Netscape at the URL digital, physical technologies using dry or sim- ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/docs/INFO- SHEET pler media. 6. H. Ueda,"The Impact of Technology on Today' s distinct photographic markets and Tomorrow's Photofinishing," J. Imaging Technol., businesses will merge into a less differentiated 11, 98- 103 (1985). but broader and larger market for imaging and 7. E. L. Eisenstein,"The End of the Book? Some information. Perspectives on Media Change," Am. Scholar, 64, Today' s electronic imaging equipment will 541-555 (1995). ―172― James C. OWENS J. Soc. Photogr. Sci. Technol. Japan

8. L. De Schamphelaere,"Short Run Digital Color 10. S. Hannaford,"Press check: Report from DRUPA," Printing," Appendix to Proceedings of the IS & T Adobe Magazine, 6, 23- 25 (1995). 11th International Congress on Advances in Non- 11. A. B. Fowler,"What Has Happened to Research at Impact Printing Technologies, 1- 15, (1995). Industrial Laboratories?" Am. Phys. Soc. News, 4, 8 9. R. Gibbs,"Printing Benefits from New Technol- (1995). ogies," Laser Focus World, 31, 77- 82 (1995).