Word: optic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...lost his sight completely during the last of four operations to improve the vision in his left eye. Chen says it is "questionable" exactly what happened during the operation, but his optic nerve was destroyed, and his sight was gone...
...blistering speeds. A set-top box with five times the computing power of a top-of-the-line IBM PC downloads images from the server at the rate of 30 pictures a second. Press a button on the remote, and the signal travels through cable-TV lines, fiber-optic wires, switches and servers on the other side of town in less time than it takes for a conventional remote control to change the channel on a TV set across a living room...
Cable finds itself in a vulnerable position because, at least temporarily, it is lagging behind in the perennial game of technological leapfrog. Nearly every major cable company is developing sophisticated new fiber-optic technology that will ultimately deliver hundreds of channels and permit full interactivity -- enabling viewers to order programs on demand, buy merchandise at the touch of a button and "talk back" to the set in a host of other ways. But this much vaunted technology is still years away from nationwide operation. For now, most cable customers must settle for 40 or 50 channels of traditional programming, technology...
...doing the work of three people," says Joseph Kelterborn, 44, who works for the NYNEX telephone company in New York City. His department, which installs and maintains fiber-optic networks, has been reduced from 27 people to 20 in recent years, in part by combining what were once three separate positions -- switchman, powerman and tester -- into his job of carrier switchman. As a result, says Kelterborn, he often works up to four extra hours a day and one weekend in three. "By the time I get home," he complains, "all I have time for is a shower, dinner...
That is at least in part why phone companies like Pacific Bell, which has already laid 350,000 miles of fiber-optic cable, are eagerly waiting to purchase a new generation of fast video "servers" that squeeze movies and other programming down to the right size and deliver them to customers virtually on demand. Hewlett-Packard and other manufacturers are scrambling to roll out such servers by next year at prices of up to $20 million...