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Multimedia-Do
I Give a Darn?
By Sonia Harrison
Multimedia,
shmultimedia. Why do I care about a word that most people have a
difficult time understanding-myself included? A word that has no
clear meaning yet can mean anything that involves sight and hearing,
such as audio, video, music, computers and the Internet-or any combination
thereof. More importantly, why should I care?
I care
because I thrive on the future of technology. And, anything (regardless
of what it's called) that can help me hear sound the way it was
meant to be heard, see images the way they were meant to be seen,
and allows me to access information-lots of information-on a whim,
is very exciting to me. Being able to do it using a standard home
appliance that I'm already familiar with excites me even more.
I'm
looking forward to the day when I can use my TV to do more than
just watch movies, sitcoms and reruns of "Saturday Night Live."
I want to be able to use it to call my parents in Texas and see
and hear them as if they were in my family room, sitting only a
few feet away. I want to be able to use it to monitor my beach home
when I can't physically be there to see if a windstorm might've
blown a window out. I want to be able to use it to see what the
current weather situation is on the Oregon coast or in other places
in the world. I want to be able to use it to call up the Internet
to find out what's on the menu of a new restaurant I plan to visit
on Saturday night. Then, I want to be able to quickly and easily
get the directions to that restaurant. And, if I'm watching the
Food Channel, looking for ideas for what to order at that new restaurant,
I even want to be able to smell the food the chef is preparing.
Yes,
smell the food. (Touching and tasting may present a bit more of
a challenge.) I believe these things I've mentioned are things we
will see happening in our lifetime. And, it's all because of technology,
in this case, multimedia. This technology in particular can combine
different forms of media to give us more enjoyment out of life.
In my case, it means bringing together the television, the computer,
the Internet, digital-quality sound and images, and hopefully soon,
smell.
I don't
know about you, but I can hardly wait.
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