*The Integrated Newsroom - Literature Review*

2.9 The not too distant future

Media gurus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are in the process of revolutionising the landscape of the electronic frontier. They are designing software to create electronic, personalised and interactive newspapers. Malamud (1994, p.134 - 135) predicts that newspapers of the future will be electronic and displayed on small, portable computer screens with excellent visual quality. WWW users will be able to search worldwide networks for the latest news of interest and it will automatically display the page to look like the front page of a daily newspaper.

Users will be able to view stories according to their preference. Information will initially be presented in short articles and upon request can be linked to longer in-depth stories or be transformed into videotape images or into a vocal narrative with the click of a button. Agents will be able to monitor and automatically tailor news to the whim and fancy of the user. The future promises exciting technological developments that could revolutionise the WWW. One hundred and fifty universities are currently working with industry partners and government in a project called Internet 2. It combines member network applications and engineering development efforts and promises of multicasting and a new generation of applications capabilities (Internet2 Online 2000).

This prediction may very well be on its way to conception with Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), the de-facto world standard for wireless information and telephony services on digital mobile phones and other wireless terminals. To date 75 percent of the world handset manufacturers and carriers representing 100 million subscribers worldwide have committed to using WAP technology. According to the Strategis Group, by the year 2001 there will be over 530 million wireless subscribers around the world, with the number surpassing the one billion mark by 2005. Phones will have multimedia capabilities to retrieve e-mail and 'push and pull' information from the Internet (Wireless Application Protocol Forum 1999, p.1).

WAP specifications were jointly developed by global telecommunications experts to benefit the consumer. When this system is implemented globally, consumers will have fast and efficient access to information (including the WWW) via a wireless handset, enabling secure transactions through an easy to use interface (ibid p.15). This will result in a truly 'mobile' access to the Internet where subscribers are no longer restricted to the confines

of a desk space or desktop. Sceptics may argue that current mobile phones are palm-sized and screen displays show only a few lines of text, however Kopin Corporation (Massachusetts) has developed the CyberDisplay, which is "smaller than a thumbnail and thinner than a grain of rice. It is billed as the world's smallest high-performance, high-resolution active matrix liquid crystal display." (Industry Week, 1998, p.16).

CyberDisplay promises future mobile phone users as much information as presently available on personal computer monitors. With a lens and backlight, the CyberDisplay creates a virtual image equivalent to viewing a 20-inch, full-color monitor from a distance of five feet, with equal clarity in bright light and dim. Manufactured from single-crystalline silicon, the displays have a density of 1,700 lines per inch and an operating speed of 180 Hz. Kopin estimates that by this year, CyberDisplay-equipped phones will be capable of much of the same functionality as laptop computers, while requiring only a tiny fraction of the power. Users will be able to view e-mails, spreadsheets, and Web sites, and even conduct real-time videoconferencing through their cell phones.

One of Internet 2's, advanced features is an intelligent software allowing WWW users to perform concept searches for specific concepts, exact subjects and precise stories overcoming the current information overload (Powell 1999). With ThirdVoice, consumers are already able to have a peek of the capabilities of such a system. Third Voice enables 'inline' discussion forums, ie. interactive web site communication. Launched in May 1999, its main attraction lies in the fact that it allows users the freedom and ability to openly express ideas at any point in a Web page. Prior to this development, web authors from across the world had the freedom to develop content, but the viewer only had two choices - to read or not to read the Web content.

Third Voice is a free browser companion service that allows users to express thought and opinion through inline notes on any Web page. A user simply has to download Third Voice, a free service tool from their website (ThirdVoice Online 1999). Sites with Third Voice capability carry tiny markers which indicate notes from other users. Clicking on a note, allows the user to read the comment, and add personal thoughts or e-mail them to a friend. Third Voice can be used in three broad levels: to optimise management of useful web material, to facilitate collaboration and dialogue with other users, and to share consumer information.

A tool which can be used to enhance interactivity and simulate the location of any news event for the reader is IPIX technology developed by Interactive Pictures Corporation which can seamlessly remap two opposing photographs into a single 360-degree digital image. The two 180-degree photographs of a scene or object are taken with conventional or digital cameras fitted with a fish-eye lens. Using software to combine two 180-degree photographs viewers can use the mouse to navigate within the photograph and beyond its borders, left, right, up or down (IPIX Online 1999). This replicates the vision one would achieve by 'panning' with the use of only two still digital images.

The possibilities that IPIX has in store are exciting. Journalists can re-create a press conference, crime scene or sports venue for the viewer with this simple-to-use technology. IPIX uses the example of the vision created by using two still images of Princess Diana's car crash site which was aired on CNN for a full ten-minutes while anchors described the events live. The vision that was shown was an IPIX tour created from two single photographs. IPIX Corporation is currently developing software and hardware capabilities for immersive videography and expect to launch a product this year.

University of California Digital Library project's Robert Wilensky described multi-layered documents that could draw on text in one location, images in another and audio and video in a third centre. With this system, anyone could make changes on a document's unique transparent layer regardless of its form and save the changes made. These suggested changes can be integrated as a separate layer by another user, which could effectively streamline editing newspapers, newscasts and online news websites where changes can be suggested and made in an entirely virtual realm. Another feature, electronic post-it notes can be easily attached to serve as a reminder or at a basic level as a lens which rests on the document and could translate the text into a different form, even a different language (Powell 1999).

Broadband (high-speed Internet access) will have important implications for online news. If implemented commercially, information can be delivered hundreds of times quicker than currently possible. "It becomes more like television and the means of transmission often under the close control of television or telecommunications companies." (PANPA Bulletin, 1999c, p.32) Newspaper companies face the challenge of securing a place in the coming broadband landscape. XML (extensible mark-up language) is an extended version of HTML (which has reached its limits). It is a powerful means of tagging textual information and making it easily searchable. It could have dramatic implications for WWW-based classified advertising and other database publishing areas (ibid).