Not so cutting edge anymore - some of these links are out of date now.
I will look for more up to date examples ASAP.
Thanks to Richard for pointing out a dodgy link which took you to a site where
the subject matter was not entirely in line with our curriculum and they didn't wear many clothes.
Obviously a leaving present from one of the hackers who did the unit last year.
WebCams
WebCams are cameras that are connected to the Web. You can link
to a site and see what the camera happens to be looking at right now. This can
be fun, it is an innocent piece of voyeurism, but imagine the future uses of
this. Think about if you could connect with any of thousands of cameras in any
significant area on the planet and get live video. Currently you get still
pictures that are updated at regular intervals, depending on what your bandwidth
permits.
A view from a
helmet - see what Steve Mann sees through the video camera mounted on his
helmet.
Listening to audio over the net used to mean that you had to
wait a long time for a file to download to listen to a few seconds of audio. Now
there are ways of getting audio live, even over 14.4 connections.
This still requires quite some bandwidth, but it is
getting pretty inexpensive to come by. A $100 Connectix camera and a free
CU-SeeMe program gets you going. It is possible (barely) over a 28.8 modem.
Java is a language developed by Sun that can produce applets,
self-contained programs, that are downloaded and executed by your web-browser,
thereby bringing much increased interactivity to the web. JavaScript is a more
simple way of accessing this functionality by embedding codes in HTML files.
The Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) is a
standard for storing and displaying 3 dimensional environments. Some very
impressive stuff appearing.
The ability to make phonecalls over the Net could
just about put the long-distance phone companies out of business. However, the
quality is still somewhat variable.
All of these fun things could use some more
speed. Several promising technologies are coming up that will provide high
bandwidth to the masses. ADSL or SDSL lines from the phone company can provide
several megabits incoming, over existing phone lines. Cable modems can provide
10 megabits or more. Trials are taking place, and prices of the modems are
dropping. Watch out for the @Home network that will provide national Web access
over cable modems.
The
ADSL Forum - 6Mbps incoming over regular phone lines.
Hyperstand - info on cable modems
and much new stuff in multimedia.
HTML is somewhat limited in being able to lay
things out exactly like you want them. There are various options for including
more rich content in web pages.
Shockwave
- Macromedia Director plug-in for Netscape.
Multi-User Object Oriented Environments
Here we are talking about
interactive environments, allowing you to walk around in an on-line world,
create artifacts and interact with other players. This could have great
potential for education, not to mention the fun-aspect.
The CoVis Project - Collaborative
learning venture, focused on science education.
Internet
VR - large listing of MOO sites (Multi-user Object-Oriented environments).
Earth Viewers
The Web provides unprecendented possibilities for getting
a better overview of our planet. Specifically there are sites that present you
with the big picture of planet Earth, such as in what is seen from space.
The Net has the potential to revolutionize the way we
interact with each other economically. There are several schemes coming out
allowing the transfer of money electronically.
