Bird-Doggin' the Internet

Annual Sanity Check

Last year at this time we played "Reflecting on the Future" in an effort to see what current and emerging technologies held in store for design engineers. Given the hype of the Internet since then, I would have expected that many more useful resources and technologies would now be available to enhance engineering productivity and make relevant information more easy to find. The reality, however, is that much of the hype is still hype, and most of the productivity tools we yearned for are either out of reach or embedded deep within the World Wide Web.

Trends: The dawn of 1997 saw the predominance of e-mail, the twilight of WAIS and telnet, and the promise of such novelties as animation, teleconferencing, Java, virtual reality, and multimedia. E-mail is still king in terms of Internet usage. Although many of the emerging technologies are used to some extent in the gaming, transaction, and hobby areas, little has been developed which is of use to practicing engineers. If you think you're missing the boat on new technologies, think again and hold on for another year. Much is promising in terms of development work, but little of usefulness is available; limited bandwidth remains the single largest deterrent to some of the more promising offerings, and even a 56kbps standard--if it is ever finished--still leaves us connected by POTS (plain old telephone service).

New Tools:We have also looked at emerging tools such as customizable newsfeeds, off-site storage, intelligent agents, on-line commerce and secure transactions, live broadcasts, and downloadable component libraries. The latter two tools are probably the ones of most interest to the engineering community. Already, trade show and conference material is available in limited amounts using RealAudio and similar technologies, and distance learning is gaining momentum. Component libraries, especially in the form of downloadable CAD.dwg and .dxf files will migrate increasingly from CD-ROM to the Internet this year. There are already a number of companies in the formative stages which are offering this service to manufacturers. More and more individual companies will go it on their own. Off-site storage and electronic commerce are still plagued by security concerns. Although I and many others still maintain that restaurants and automatic teller machines pose more of a threat to credit card security than does the Internet, the risk does exist and it gets lots of press. This risk has been exacerbated by the numerous bugs which have been discovered in the latest browser releases (4.0 and subsequent versions) of both Netscape and Microsoft. Most bugs in these products, in fact, have been related to security and disk access issues. We've also watched the newsfeed business evolve and seen "push" come to shove. Push technology provides vendors and information the opportunity to push filtered information directly to your desktop. Supported by advertising and subscription models, I've yet to find an offering which provides compelling engineering news, information, or tools.

Browsers:This is probably the hottest area of contention where Netscape, Microsoft, and Janet Reno are once again slugging it out. For my own money, Netscape 3.0/3.01 (or equivalent) provides an adequate platform on which to search for actionable data without the 40+MB of bloatware overhead and continual bug patches that the newest offerings from the browser boys also brings to your desktop.

The Dark Side: Almost three years ago when this column was launched, the most numerous complaints I heard were from those offended by foul language or who were confused by the apparent complexity of the technology. As we move into 1998, we are deluged with spam, stalked by predators, shilled by scammers, and confronted with hopping, spinning, jumping, flashing ads at every turn. World governments are locked in a bitter battle over who will control the 'Net, who will have the authority to issue domain names, what content will be allowed, and who will be able to access it.

Column Emphasis: Most engineering people I hear from and work with complain with equal bitterness about the poor quality of commercial sites, slow downloads due to gratuitous graphics, and the difficulty of being able to find relevant -- and accurate -- information without protracted searching. These are all signposts of an emerging technology with access for the lowest common denominators of the intellectual community; and they will not be resolved soon. Our emphasis in the past has been on "better skills" and "communications." We have discussed specific engineering and resource sites, internet tools and technology, ISPs and spam, computer configuration, and many other topics. It is time, nevertheless, for the annual plea we have made in the past, of letting us know what you value and what you would like to see in future columns. We have batted about an updated and tutorial approach to the art of searching, how to find and use major plug-in tools, how to deal with innumerable drawing and text
formats on the Web, bandwidth issues, security and privacy issues and tools, news sites, conferenceware, Internet telephony, specific engineering disciplines, updates of past topics (e.g. medical, plastics, patents) and a bevy of others.

Help keep Bird-doggin' relevant and your personal tool chest brimming as we approach the new millennium. E-mail your queries and preferences to myself and the editors of this magazine. It's a big Web out there, and your opinion does count!

This column is written by Dr. Steve O'Neil of Micro Mo Electronics, Inc. He can be reached on the Internet at steveo@micromo.com.

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