Life After Television

If Gilder ( Wealth and Poverty ) is correct, television will become irrelevant in the bright new interactive age of the telecomputer. A telecomputer is a personal computer adapted for video processing, and linked by fiber-optic threads to other telecomputers around the world. In an exciting, visionary glimpse of the future, Gilder conjures a global village where viewers can tap into any station or into newspapers, where people can transmit their own video images and access an endless feast of specialized programs. Scrutinizing the fledgling U.S. telecomputer companies and the massive resistance they face from entrenched interests, he predicts that the Japanese, already in the lead, will steal the show unless the American telecommunications industry mounts a coordinated effort. The age of the telecomputer may be decades away, but even couch potatoes will be stimulated by this thought-provoking essay. (June)