Building the access ramps.

Just what is the information highway? The idea behind the concept is to combine the best features of existing technology in new ways. Telephone lines go into almost every home and business. But, existing lines don't have the capacity to carry video. Fibre-optic cable of the type used by cable-TV operator scan carry the huge quantities of information. However, the cable-TV feed only goes in one direction. The plan is to patch these technologies together to form a link between personal computers, televisions, and the world's vast storehouse of knowledge.

Will we soon start talking to our TVs, or will our phones sprout video screens? Perhaps. Or, maybe a completely new information appliance will enter our lives.

The big players in this game are telephone and cable firms, publishers, entertainment companies, and computer software and hardware manufacturers. They all want to install systems - the information highway - that will link the people who have information to sell with those who want to buy it. Vast quantities of text, sound, images, video, and data are being created daily. Businesses, factories, hospitals, schools, government offices, and individuals are the consumers of this output. And, it's going to mean a lot more than having access to 500 channels of music videos on our televisions.

Just look at how this might change education. A U.S. study says that "Computer-based instruction ... [enables] 30% more learning in 40% less time, at 30% less cost." Get ready for a world in which you do research in a digital library and, thanks to virtual-reality technology, take field trips to any location in the world without leaving the classroom.

Your school will have access to almost limitless resources. An American observatory already rents time on its telescopes to amateur astronomers. Through their home computers, stargazers can control the telescope from thousands of kilometres away and then download images onto their own screens through the phone lines. Some classrooms in Canada are already using the Internet to work on joint projects with other classrooms in Japan and Europe.

In other disciplines, rural doctors will be able to send high-resolution X-rays to far-distant specialists for analysis. Experiments are already underway to perfect techniques that will allow surgeons to operate on patients by remote control.

At present, we're still building the access ramps to the information highway, however, in 1994, Fortune magazine devoted an entire issue to the topic. It advised its corporate readers to: "Embrace it, for it will transform our lives and the way we work more profoundly than we can imagine - and nothing is going to stop it."

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. How can we ensure our society doesn't fall into information haves and have-nots? For example, cable companies will likely be key links in the information highway but cable only reaches 80% of Canadian homes, and many people cannot afford to buy a home computer. Are these people to be left behind in the technology race? Discuss.

2. There are those that fear Canada isn't going to make it onto the on-ramp. That's because of the thicket of government regulations that surrounds our communications industries. The entrepreneurs who are driving the information highway prefer to do business in a place where competition is not hedged about by rules and paperwork. On the other hand, an information highway governed solely by the marketplace might be an ugly thing. The threat to privacy, the peddling of info-garbage, and other issues demand public attention. How are these differences to be resolved?