It is no great mystery that major shifts in cultural and
societal processes are marked with new advances in technology.
This is also true of information technology. The printing
press, the camera, the telephone, the computer, the Internet
and the cell phone, are all inextricably linked to major
changes in human culture. The printing press is linked to
the rise of social movements. The photograph and telephone
are linked to the birth of the Industrial Revolution. The
advent of early computers and television coincides with the
first steps towards global consortiums like the League of
Nations. Information media changes how we perceive the world
around us. The following profiles are two examples of current
media that are expected to make a difference in how information
is generated and perceived.
The Hundred-Dollar Laptop
At the 2005, U.N. World Summit on Information Society, The
MIT Media Lab’s Professor Nicholas Negroponte and UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan together presented the world’s
first hand powered “$100.00” laptop. The project,
also known by the name of Negroponte’s independent
NGO, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), sees a future
where all children have a computer of their own. The OLPC
project is especially geared towards remote areas where access
to resources and financial support might be limited. Already
the governments of Thailand and Brazil are making plans for
orders.
This laptop is in everyway portable. It is powered with
a 500-Mhz AMD processor and a gigabyte of memory for storage.
A low-powered LCD screen is just 7 inches designed by MIT
Media Lab’s Mary Lou Jepsen. The low cost of this unique
LCD screen (only $35.00 per unit) accounts for the greater
part of the laptop’s affordability. In terms of connectivity
in remote areas, the laptop has built-in Wi-Fi with its own
mesh network that works peer-to-peer. In addition, the unit
has a microphone and headset to act as a telephone communications
system. The electricity-generating crank creates 40 minutes
of power per 1 minute of hand turning.
Preserving Information
The catch-22 about developing information technologies is
their impact on document preservation. Information media
represents a wide spectrum of materials. From animal and
plant based papers to virtual instant messages, archival
preservation of documents is a never-ending issue. Virtual
documents are particularly problematic because there is
no original hardcopy. Still, virtual documents currently
make a large up a large portion of business transactions.
In October 2005, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA) shelled out $308 million for the development of an
Electronic Records Archives system (ERA). The project is
lead by Lockheed Martin (the same Lockheed Martin working
with Homeland Security and US Department of Defense Intelligence)
in conjunction with subcontractor FileTek Inc, a data management
software company. FileTek is also responsible for providing
services to the National Archives of the United Kingdom.
This six-year project seeks to create a comprehensive and
accessible record of “digital history” that is
properly preserved, protected and stored regardless of document
format. One of the products, StoreHouse (created by FileTek)
is a data storage and access management system designed to
handle large quantities of structured and unstructured data.
At the same time, StoreHouse can accept new storage devices
and media types and supports automatic backup.
“If Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address
on a laptop, we may not have it today. Electronic Records
have been disappearing at an alarming rate because we’ve
had no means to preserve them.” -- Washington Secretary
of State, Sam Reed.
Documents represent cultural and societal processes that
can have governmental and legal value. From presidential
records to cultural artifacts, archival preservation is a
means of retaining historical evidence. In November 2005
information search engine giant, Google, donated $3 million
to the Library of Congress (US), to begin the process of
building a “World Digital Library.” The plan
will include creating bilingual projects, forming ties with
international libraries, and a developing record of world
cultures. Right now, the Library of Congress is in discussion
with the National Library of Egypt to feature a scientific
collection of Islamic works dating from the 10th through
the 16th century.
For more information:
www.media.mit.edu
www.lockheedmartin.com
www.filetek.com
www.archives.gov
www.loc.gov
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