Australian Computer Society

Australia: The Networked Nation

Talk to the ACS North Queensland Chapter - AGM

by Tom Worthington, President of the Australian Computer Society

Wednesday, 7 February 1996 - Audio/visual room of the Townsville Grammar School

< Introduction >

• Thank you for having me in Townsville
• Australia future through IT?
• So called experts visit Defence
• ACS members help shape the future
• IT futures from Canberra

< 2005: look, no wires! >

• Telecommunications industry partially
• deregulated in 1997
• Lot of Telstra/Optus Pay TV cable
• Cable modems digital available
• But Pay TV cable obsolete

< 2005: look, no wires! >

• Little fibre to home despite 1993 ALP election platform
• Some ADSL
• Many terrestrial cellular wireless services
• Local telcom plans for phone towers problem
• Low, medium and high orbit data satellites

< 1998: the year my PC broke >

• Personal Access Display Devices (PADDs)
• 1998 equivalent of PDA
• From brooch to clipboard sized
• Cheap disposable terminals = 4 x Pentium
• Video, audio = mobile phone, radio, TV and video cam-corder
• Digital keys, TV remote control

< Personal Access Display Devices >

• PADDs from Star Trek Next Generation
• virtual reality,
• headset
• and data gloves used
• bad manners to wear socially
• VRML interface

< Windows'2005 a System Oddity >

• No one cares about Windows'2005 or IBM's OS/2005
• Linux/2005 is free and popular
• PADDs have minimal OS & download Java-like objects

< The 'net: chaos as usual >

• PADDs wireless linked to the 'net
• 'net like the Internet but bigger
• encryption used for privacy
• Net regulation political
• Internet Party a political force in Senate
• "telephone" business gone by 1997: all "data"
• phone monopoly destroyed by Internet audio

< Job, which job? >

• Most office work at local CyberCafes
• Historical connection to coffee and commerce
• Small 6 person work groups
• No new freeways or airports since 1998
• tele-commute from small towns
• Banks replaced by Web based transactions
• Farmers sell produce on-line

< Australia: Networked Nation >

• In 1998 Australia with Asia started to dominate world economy
• looser management style for on-line commerce
• Good cyber-cafe infrastructure
• educated multi-cultural work-force
• multi-language policy for Government on-line services

< Australia: Networked Nation >

• Europe produced reports
• USA deregulated and destroyed its R&D base
• Australia muddled through
• Asia's IT professionals trained in Australia
• ACS certification and training used
• ACS conferences brought in business
• Australian Internet expanded northward

< How much is real? >

• How much telecoms deregulation in 1997?
• PADDs just possible
• wireless modems in about a year
• Much ACS work is via the Internet
• Have used a Cyber Cafe
• More Defence Department work on-line

< How much is real? >

• Proposals net regulation
• One Internet literate candidate for Senate
• Rural use of the Internet but using US MSN
• Potential for Australia in post-industrial world
• Current Prime Minister keen on Asia
• Hosting 14th World Computer Congress on-line