| Abstract |
The new broadband networks, while extending
the reach of the Internet and enhancing the content, have initiated new
ways for conducting business and providing services to the consumers. They
have enabled the various media to leave their separate and distinct identities
and converge for transmitting information to the masses. In the new "technitorial
age," online journalists need to work imaginatively with the
rich swirl of text, photos, graphics, audio and video that multimedia embodies
and create stories that can be told in innovative ways.
With the availability of high-speed broadband, access to the online world
will come not through computers alone but also through wireless devices
and television sets. At the same time, online content will move beyond text
to on-demand audio and video.This is the future of news: custom-fitted,
highly targeted, and drawn from a variety of sources. With a new phenomenon
called "meta browsing"-- a service that retrieves multiple web pages and
lets the user view them in a single place-- news can be delivered in real
time via e-mail, pager, cell phones, mobile wireless services, personal
Web pages or pop-up screen alerts. A new technology is "Telematics", a computerized
system in a vehicle that connects you to services or content based on your
location. The new cell phone programming, which has taken off in Japan,
can turn cell phones into computers that can download and execute programs
just like PCs. In addition to Telematics, another option available to consumers
of mobile news and programming are XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite
Radio that provide digital feeds with more than 100 channels of music, talk
and news, such as National Public Radio and BBC Radio News. Voice portals
like "TellMe" - a wireless service that supplies news headlines, weather
reports, stock quotes, movie reviews and sports scores ¡V dot the
landscape.
Another option will be personal broadcasting that will allow people to create
their own programming. People will be able to tape their own video, edit
it, beam it up to a satellite and broadcast it anywhere. Yet another scenario
suggests that the digital convergence of computers and television will result
in a set-top box that can deliver news personalized to your individual tastes,
based on the kinds of programs or segments you watch.
Latest innovation is "Bots", a digital butler that roams
the Internet, intuitively knowing your likes and dislikes, retrieving news
and information according to your individual tastes. These bots, also called
intelligent agents, are expected to replace both online newspapers and portals
as the primary source of users' online news in just a few
years. News in the future may be very different from what we are used to
reading in the daily newspapers or the Internet or watching on television.
Will people be going to portals or online papers to get their news or will
they be using bots?
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