Glenn points:
> There's a great article by HP Senior VP Dr. Joel Birnbaum
> in the December HP Journal. The article is entitled
> "Communications Challenges of the Digital Information Utility."

> Dr. Birnbaum argues that in time there will be a "digital
> information utility" just as today there are power and water
> utilities.

He's talked about this before, and it strikes me as a little bit
reminiscent of the idea from 30-40 years ago that the worldwide
market for computers was something like 12, since everyone would
be remotely hooking up to a few giant central computing "utilities".

Personally, I think he's clueless :-)

In the article he also says:

     "We do not know, nor do we care, how many motors we own; the
      same will be true for computers when they too are pervasive."

I think we've already crossed this threshold.  Try counting the number
of microprocessor controlled devices in your home (start with everything
that has a digital clock built in :-)  Chances are you'll find more
than you expect.

     "I believe that we will see the emergence of information
      appliances, [...]".

Steve Jobs tried to force the original Macintosh into this role in
1984, and Apple barely survived the attempt.  Fortunately they were
able to turn the Mac into a general purpose computer, at which point
it took off pretty well.

The information appliance of the future is here today, and it's the
web browser.  The "Digital Information Utility" is here today and it's
the Internet.  Dr. Birnbaum, I think, fails to see the difference
between infrastructure and content though.

Dr. Birnbaum exudes the radiant glow of the optimistic, idealistic,
engineer.  He writes:

     "Like all successful infrastructures, the digital information
      infrastructure will [...] have to be secure, endure over
      generations, be found everywhere, and server a purpose
      important to almost all of the population."

Rarely (if ever) in the history of humankind has anything been
created purely for the good of all.  [I find it interesting that
the English language seems to have no word to describe something
which is wholly and exclusively for the benefit of its owner/user.
If there were such a word we could use it to describe the qualities
that many current products, software specifically, lack, and which
we would demand be put into future versions]

And speaking on the complexity of the security issue with respect to
the conflicts between personal privacy and public security:

     "I believe the security issue will be solved more easily than
      the bandwidth and network-management problems."

He thinks a political issue will be easier to solve than a technical
one?  Truly an engineer.

>    "Think for a moment how easily most of us can use
>     a telephone or drive a car with an automatic
>     transmission..."

Or browse the web.

This whole article would have been science fiction twenty years ago, and
incredible insight five years ago, but today I find no predictions in it
which are not already obviously in the process of becoming true.  I see
no revolutionary changes required to get to the world Dr. Birnbaum is
describing, and very few evolutionary changes will be needed either.  All
of the pieces (The Internet and cheap access to it, content provided via
the web, the web browser interface, cheap and nearly pervasive access
hardware (PCs, WebTv, public browser access in libraries), Microsoft,
Java, etc.) are here today.  It's a straightforward and probably
unstoppable progression to the kind of digital world described.  I
seriously doubt that there will ever be anything you can point to and say
"there is the Digital Information Utility" in the sense of a centrally
controlled ideal entity.  There will always just be "the net" connecting
all of the worlds information sources and sinks.  The network is the
computer, and the information is the network.

> Separately, Dr. Birnbaum also points out that
>
>    "Because only people born after a technology has been
>     invented think of it as part of the environment, and
>     not as a technology, tomorrow's children will think
>     of computers the way we think of telephones and TV today."

"Tomorrow's" children?  Dr. Birnbaum needs to get out of the lab more
often.  All the children I know are already there.

> Anyway, I found it an interesting read. :)

Definitely.

G.