The Big Bang

Abstract

Multimedia communication is a recent technical innovation. Until now, to produce a document or to consult together, the authors had to meet face-to-face. Other common forms are the use of FAX, telephone or e-mail. The problem with these is that either they use the vision sense but have the disadvantage of using just a one-way channel, or they use a two-way channel but do not have the advantages of vision. Having a two-way channel with vision/talk/write would be a great advantage. In this sense with a microphone, a camera, a screen to display the camera images and a speaker to reproduce the audio on each side of the communication channel, one could achieve this two-way vision/talk/write paradigm. The camera communication would enable each of the interlocutors to see the other one’s environment, the microphone system would enable the communication of audio and the computer would enable the written communication. An integrated use of these various communication media, such as video, audio, text and brainstorming graphics, is necessary to achieve a higher index of user participation and a broader information bandwidth.