INTERVIEW:
Question 1
Is it true that the personal computer era is at an end?
Answer
Yes, the PC era is ending to the extent that PCs are considered to be separate from the
network, but what's happening is the PC now is not limited to it's own hard drive and
CD-ROM but can use the some 7 million Internet servers, the other PCs that are connected
to the Internet around the world, so your individual PC becomes hugely, exponentially more
powerful than it was in the past when it was a separate unit that was dependent upon the
programs in it rather than the programs and the information spread all throughout the
Internet all around the world.
Question 2
Do you think the model of interactive TV still makes sense or not?
Answer
I think the interactive appliance is going to be the PC connected to the World Wide Web
and that will be the interactive system. I think the TV ultimately will give way, that TV
is obsolete and ultimately will die. As Andrew Grove of Intel says, the PC will control
the TV like a minor peripheral; it will just be a display for the personal computer which
connected to the World Wide Web has access to millions and millions of channels rather
than 30 channels or even 500 channels as some people speak of the future of television.
Question 3
What do you think of Java?
Answer
I think Java is a new programming language that's very powerful because it's based on an
old programming language which most programmers know. It's C or C++-based, so it's a new
programming language that is specially adapted for the net to be secure, safe, robust on
the net, but because it's based on existing languages it's going to spread very fast, and
indeed it is spreading throughout the Internet today. You get thousands and thousands of
down-loads of Java code every day at the Sun server.
Question 4
But what can people do with Java?
Answer
Java allows people to declare independence of Microsoft, essentially and to use programs
anywhere they are on the network regardless of their operating system, regardless of the
instructions set of the microprocessor. It really gives you portable, disposable software
on the network and if you want to get some image or some program from the net, it comes
over the net with its own Java program to interpret it. If you have a Netscape browser,
you can interpret any Java program anywhere in the world.
|
