Technological developments for the digital environment

5. About Bits
The economy of bits is driven by bit architecture and by the constraints imposed by storage and delivery mediums.

• One can fit many separate streams of bits through the same space/channel that previously could carry only one analog stream.
• Bits can be error corrected more
  easily than can analog information.
• Bits can be modified and manipulated relatively
  easily.
• A bit is a bit is a bit: Bits don't care what kinds of information they represent.
• The "winner(s)" of the pipe wars will play an important role in the shape of new media

At Los Alamos, Two Visions of Supercomputing
IBM slows light, readies it for networking
Truly Micro Electronics in a Single Molecule
*Four articles about digital delivery services: pipe wars
(you can write this as one paper with headings dividing the pieces)

Study Question:

Discuss some of the implications to/effects on new media if one of these industries "wins" the pipe wars": phone companies; (tv) cable companies; electric companies; satellite companies.

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Negroponte, Being Digital