Digital Economy, Fall 2001: Suggested Article Topics

Possible Article Topics

The Semantic Web: What do computer scientists and information designers mean when they use this term? How would a shift from presentation to semantics transform uses of the Web? What practical problems and difficulties of implementation might arise in development of this concept? Who's behind it and for what reasons? Is the Semantic Web a significant part of our future? What does it say about the current state of Web and Internet evolution?
Biological Convergence: A few months ago there was great celebration over the ostensible discovery of the human genome. For a long time, experts have been speculating that the development of information technologies (computers, networks, etc.) will eventually join with advances in bioscience (medical informatics, gene splicing, etc.). In the real world of 2001, what are the points of contact between information and biotechnology? Are there any real prospects for economic development? What can digital networks tell us about living systems, and vice versa?
Beyond the Screen: As the personal computer industry chokes out, many developers claim that IT investment must move to other platforms, such as handheld computers and "embedded" processing, from smart cars and houses to wearable information appliances. What's the state of progress in these areas? Have post-PC businesses been largely wiped out by the dot-com collapse, or do they represent a thread of hope in the general gloom? What are the most significant advances to be watching for the next 5-10 years? (Or alternatively: can you think of a future for the good old PC? Could a lifesaver app come along to give us something really great to do with 3 gigaHertz of processing power?)
After Napster: Not that long ago, people were talking about Napster and other peer-to-peer file trading services as the end of the line for the major record companies. After legal combat and various maneuvers, there have been compromises on both sides, but are the basic issues settled? How has file sharing affected the music industry? What implications does it have for other information businesses? Beyond market economics, what cultural impact has file sharing made? Have consumers begun to change the way they think about entertainment products and their producers?
I'm Not a Human Being But I Play One on TV: The "Final Fantasy" movie released this summer ignited a minor buzz because of its advances in realistically simulating human movements and expressions. Would this be a bad time to get your big break in the movies? Are humans finished in Hollywood? What's the appeal of digital simulation? How has it been used so far, and how is it likely to be used in the future? What can human entertainment do to survive? (Or alternatively: Is the meat/pixel dichotomy false or misleading? Could we make more progress by thinking about hybrid approaches--a kind of cyborg aesthetic?)
Game Time: A creative soul coming of age in 1850 might have dreamed of being a poet. In 1900, s/he probably wanted to write novels. In 1950, s/he may have thought about movies or even video. In 2000, that soul might belong to a game developer. What does it mean to say that the age of literature and cinema is over while the age of gaming has begun? What cultural impact have computer games had so far, and what are they likely to have in the future? How do games differ from narrative forms like plays, novels, and movies? How will people who grow up with games at the center of their imaginative lives use those games to structure their everyday lives?
Virtual Communities: When the Internet boom started up, many people, especially those with counterculture experience, predicted that digital networks would foster immaterial, on-line communities: not just new versions of the WELL but utopias, dystopias, and atopias of all sorts. This talk has increased in volume as the dot-coms have gone away, with many pointing to communities as the answer instead of markets. But at the turn of the century the largest virtual community (if you want to call it that) is AOL... Would it be hasty to write off the communitarian vision of the Internet? What sorts of disembodied communities exist in today's Internet, aside from AOL and its other large competitors? Should we include those related to multi-player gaming and/or mass entertainment? What significance might virtual communities hold for western or global culture as a whole?
Striking Back at the Empire: As Microsoft brings Windows XP to market, what are the prospects for that company's infamous monopoly on operating system software? Can open-source competitors such as GNU/Linux make significant inroads? (To say nothing of Apple's UNIX-based OS-X.) Will Microsoft's attempt to standardize information exchange (as in "Hailstorm" and related initiatives) win out, or will consumers finally rebel? Can the current fragmentation of computing culture continue, or must a single way of doing things eventually dominate? What consequences might follow from an information monoculture?
Cookies and Other Monsters: What problems does use of the Internet pose for personal privacy? How secure are Web transactions? What technologies and practices can be used to keep sensitive data out of the wrong hands? What business opportunities stem from privacy and data protection? On the other hand, how much danger do we face from unrestricted private communication, for instance among criminals and terrorists? In the larger view, is our concept of privacy being eroded, and if so, how and by whom? Could we live without privacy?
Don't Go Back to Flatland: Experiments in 3-D graphics are almost as old as the Web itself: Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) has been through two generations and has spawned numerous imitations and competitors. Yet except for the game environment (tiny exception!) and some cheesy interface work, 3-D hasn't caught on as a mainstay of Internet design. The grand vision of Cyberspace or Metaverse got shelved back in the 90s, the victim of processor lag and bandwidth squeezes. Could it be due for a revival? Are there significant commercial or aesthetic possibilities for 3-D graphics on the Web? Or is the trend moving away from rich graphics, driven by the constraints of portable and handheld displays? What about 3-D technologies in the gaming world? Could developments here re-converge with the Web at some point? Or will new paradigms for 3-D interaction need to be invented before there can be much progress?
The Love That Dare Not Name Its Price: Porn. In the early days, when users were mainly academic computer scientists, sexually explicit material may have produced 70-80% of packet traffic on the Internet. While the percentage has no doubt fallen, it's undeniable that depictions of sex and other taboo subjects are a major reason why men connect to the Net. As other dot-coms spin down, the porn business (along with gambling) remains one of the few reliable profit centers. What can we learn about the so-called Internet revolution from on-line pornographers? Does their prosperity prove that the Net appeals mainly to outlaw, antisocial, or adolescent desires? Or taking up Hugh Hefner's pipe for a moment, does it mean that the Net has always been a force for sexual liberation? Or maybe we should forget about sex for a moment. The SF writer Pat Cadigan once desribed a broadband entertainment system in which everything was some kind of "porn"--"food porn, medical porn, disaster porn, technology porn"--taking this term to refer not merely to sex, but to anything that arouses sustained attention or desire. Could we be approaching Cadigan's vision of the future? Literally or figuratively, is the Internet a palace of porn? And what it if is?
Bush (Vannevar) for President: Many have speculated that the World Wide Web and other information technologies must eventually have an impact on political life in the U.S. and other market democracies. Is there any evidence of this so far? Have people used Internet resources to become more knowledgeable about politics, aside from notorious instances such as Matt Drudge's outing of the Clinton sex scandal? Have institutions of government made effective use of the Internet to connect to their constituents? What impact on political life could information technologies have in the future?