The Information Appliance

The roar of the Information Superhighway is getting a lot louder a lot sooner than anyone expected. When the concept of a huge interactive, digital network first began taking shape in the late 1980s, nobody expected to see much of it before the end of the century. But the frenzy of dealmaking between phone companies, entertainment conglomerates, and cable operators is pushing up the beginning of the highway to the next two to three years.

Only one problem: What will be the gadget we use to harness that flood of digitized traffic--the phone calls, movies, TV shows, data bases, on-line magazines, and shopping services coming into our homes and offices? Before the all-digital lifestyle takes root, we'll need some kind of device--or a series of them--to manage the information flow. Think of it as the information appliance--a device that will be as commonplace in a few years as the washing machine or VCR is now. Information appliances will instantly make the connections to a world of digitized entertainment, communications, and data--on the superhighway or over the airwaves.