JOURftAI The Official Journal of the Society Fo r Information Display O~Sgo •r •N ' uo~aou1~d S91~0~'B~Oq"B'I 1f0H ars~~xa ~auqoa'I • r p~au~ag N f'. (j) r-1 ~ The Social Implications of Demand <1> Information Systems ..0 0 By E. A. Ulbrich +Ju 0 Display Update 73, SID Meet Set in ~ San Diego December 8 -<1> ..0 1972-73 SID Chapter Officers E <1> +J Real-Time Interactive Stereoscopy 0.. <1> By A. Michael Noll (f) vol. 1 , number 3 r:JDDJ JOURnnl T he Official Journal of the Soci ety For Informati on D isplay The Social Implications of Demand 5 By E. A. Ulbrich Information Systems A discussion of the social implications of con­ sumer demand information systems for the public. Display Update 73, SID Meet Set in 13 San Diego December 8 1972-73 SID Chapter Officers 13 Real-Time Interactive Stereoscopy 14 By A. Michael Noll Man is a creature inhabiting a world of three spatial dimensions jointly with his computer progeny. SID: Standards & Definitions 22 Welcome! New Members of SID 23 Departments Message from the President 4 Book Review 23 New Products 24 SID Activities 28 Sustaining Members 28 Advertisers 29 T HE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION DISPLAY. Published bimonthly by Blackwent Publishing Company, 1605 Cahuenga Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90028, 213/463·4891. Correspondence regarding advertising, reprints and subscriptions should be sent t o the above address. Publisher, Robert Black/ Editor, Harley Bi elland/ Editorial Coor dinator, Roby Wentz/ Advert islng Manager, William R. Brand/Pr oduction Manager, Joyce Wallace/Circulation Man ager, S. Rocklin. SID NATIONAL OFFICERS: Presiden t , Dr. Carlo P. Crocetti/ Vice President , Robert C. Klein/ Secretary, Erwin A. Ulbric.h / Treasurer, Robert C. Knepper. Circle # 1 on Readers Service Card Nat ional Office Manager . .. Violet Puff Sustaining Member of Society for Information Display Saalallmpliaallans IINT'SMISSAGIPRISIDINT'SMI By E. A. Ulbrich McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company Orange County, California len~ and lnlarn~alian TELEVISION POLLUTION A discussion of the social implications of consumer demand infor­ mation systems for the U.S. pu blic. The emergence of this area as a major economic sector is documented; the revolution of the 1940's in household use of artificial information is described; and a second revolution in the 1980's, in which consumers will demand information instead of having it broadcast, is hypothesized. Some future systems costs are shown. Two major sectors of the econo­ coined word, elech·ospace, has been my of the United States are begin­ used to describe the area in which ning to merge. These am the com­ these two sectors exist. See Figure putation and communication sec­ 2 for a visualization. tors. Typical data on the magni­ The common ground between tude of these sectors for 1970 are these sectors is information systems. shown in Figure 1. The merger of The key word of the two is infor­ these sectors has been noted by many authors, and at the IEEE In­ mation and the merging sectors ternational Conference on Commu­ may well come to be known as the PHOTO ~ RESEARCH nication (San Francisco, June information industry. In this non­ technical paper all infonnation for A OIYISIOO ol KOLLMORGEN Corporation 1970) the merger could be clearly 3000 N. Ho llywood Wy., Bu rbank, CA 9 1505 seen throughout all of the technical human consumption is arbitrarily program. See Reference 7. The divided into two classes: Circle #2 on Readers Service Card September-October I Page 5 Page 4 I SID Journal By E. A. ULBRICH o... M r . Ulhnch. Kt OO ,ofiJ I w-.lnt lo mail a c heck rur $1~ t u By E. A. ULBR ICH you a t your home in Whittier. l ,OOO ---~!.A~ ~~~I?_ ~~E~~~I~I~O - - _----- - ___ --------- So, I've s ent your numt>er L5,.43!1fJ. No one else h;a s Lh •" nomhcr . ll may a l fi ·:Hiy MERGING SECTOitS have won you the gr;and rtr tze of ;a fl lclrmt: or one or 8, 835 other pr iZC!'> - 111 l ht: nuw Natural- l S9 $240, 000 L l f' l~ t~ f Excltcrn cnt G rvuawa y. Bureau of Advertising and the Na­ ,........:1~23::..::.3~ ~107.7 .lus t ima J,! inc the c xcltcrucnl ol r cccrvml\ received from the real world 100 $ 100 , 000! The cxc ltcmcnl llll;uyrn!t anythint: tional Association of Broadcasters or evcryth m~ you h:tvt! ever WOI, ntr:c.l. If yuo through senses. w irl it, you Ca nl'>avc it , ' JM:ttd il, mvc..,l tl , ~ ~ :· ·4~'( showed that for programming that COM PLOP ! or roll in it. Bec:a u ~c It w tll he "jQU r Artificial- 21. 4 money, Mr. Ulhrtc h. t/ no \_ starts at 11 :30 p.m. on the East and received through various media ~- \: I: ' West coasts and 10:30 p.m. in the ID- oth~r ;,~3 ~x;;! : :,.c~~ ~~~::;:n;h~~~e1~f y'!c;c ~~\~ /',! primarily as an extension of the door a t 1139 Elden Avenue. , _. , ;;;-.;.;::;"1 ' " midwest, t h e re are 11,804,000 ~ ~·-·· .J To finc.l our if you are a winne r , dclotch your entry senses and often fil tered by other fo r m , a ff 1x, the YES or NO 1>ca l in t he ctrclc r>rt~ v tdcd, homes viewing which represents intelligence. 8 and return the form a t once . perhaps 10% of the population Figure 3. Example of commun ication and computation working together. awake receiving information virtu­ Figure 3 shows a typical piece of ally in the middle of the night. This 12 artincial information demonstrating NATURAL ASYMPTOTE 2. 88·10 would probably have been hard to the merger of communication and ------ - -------..!--- - -------- - - - - - ·- -- forecast in 1900 by the light of a 1012 Invention of computation as it exists today. Cheap Artificlal carbon B.lament lamp, although the Computer generated titles on the Figure 1. A comparison of various sectors of the Un ited States economy. Light 1.47· 1011 avid listeners to "I LOVE A MYS­ (Based on a 1970 projection of 1963 data using leontief's inputjoutp ut technique-not actual 11 10 television are an inverse example. data- See References 1-6 for d etails). 7.2-1010 • / ·-=~~~~~~~: TERY" which started at 10:15 p.m. It is tl1e contention of this paper \Computers in the 1930's probably had an ink­ 1010 I ~ I that past growth in the area of in­ Q I ling. ~ I formation systems has been accom­ t:: Television One of the writers on this sub­ plished with inadequate considera­ " 109 Ass Umf!s Television Bit Rate ject, Marshall McLuhan, character­ tion of the social implications ei­ Radio of 5 Megabits per sec. , 8 Movies izes some media as hot and some 10 telephone b it rat e of 2. 5 ther by the public or by the tech­ Phonogra ph ktloblts per sec. , radio bit rate or 8 kilobits per as cold based on participation nologist. s ec: ant and 60 kilobits per 101 s ec fm , a nd nominal bit ( Reference 9). For instance, tele­ - count per page 150, 000. vision is cool and movies are hot. The First Revolution I feel that a much more direct tem­ 6 10 now During many of our lifetimes, a 10,000 1, 000 100 10 perature measurement for a given revolution has occurred in the area YEARS BACK F ROM 2000 AD message through some medium is Figure 4. Household use of artificial information. what price you will pay for the of information systems, and this (Based on reference 8). revolution, as shown in Figure 4 message. On that basis television is has been widely noted but little cool not because it involves 30 understood. A previous paper, Do­ frames per second of 525 lines on mestic Data Flow Analysis 1969- CRT but b ecause of the peculiar 1979, Reference 8, was an attempt way that we pay for it: buying to quantify this revolution. The products that interrupt program­ natural asymptote shown is based ming to advertise on the medium Figure 2. The merger of communication and computation. thereby paying for tl1e preparation on the gross assumption that infor­ 508 Pages mation is flowing into an individual 11. 9HrPhonc and radio frequency broadcast of 2'l8. 5 Hr TV 3 Meter Readings 197. 0 Hr Tv 3 METER READINGS during his waking hours equivalent 86. 0 Hr a m/ rm 60 Lb Trash 60 Hr a m/fm 50 Lb Trash programming material without 15. 373 Pages 9. 900 Pages to ten color televisions continuously 6. 8 Hr Phone 9. 9 Hr Phone short term regard for consumer in­ average $107,700,000,000/year "' $31.30 4 Sampl es 5 Samples in operation. No assessment of cost cost per = = terest or any immediate participa­ 0 0 11 0 0 0 Figure 5. One household information flow data. tion. It is probable that the increas­ per individual bit is attempted bit ( 365 ) ( 63,900,000 ) ( 1.47•10 ) terabit ing use of cable television systems since the value of any bit might be days households bits very high (survival ) or very low Sl ,OOO ---- - - -- 50'1, OF ESTIMATED GNP FOR 1985 will result in a heating-up of the (ignored TV commercial for some­ year day medium, especially if programs are thing you don't want ). However, at paid for directly rather than just being reh·ansmitted in the sense of this time, the average cost in 1970 "'Figure 1 s 750 fU!.lY a master antenna system.