Word: zapped
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When we can bypass the networks and easily zap ads, traditional commercials will become less and less profitable. This means you'll have to pay for TV with either money or information. Pay-per-view--for movies and sports--will become more common, as will subscriptions. (Blockbuster has already made a deal with TiVo to beam movies to set-top boxes.) When your TV becomes a massive video archive, you'll even pay for reruns...
Most people can't understand the insidiousness of Microsoft's "embrace, extend and extinguish" policy when applied to real innovations like Sun's Java, but every mouse clicker has tried to zap the Office Assistant in the Office suite. Such "functionality" is what makes Microsoftware hog all your hard-disk space, so that you need a new PC every six months. The one-size-fits-all approach is like making a car that is also a boat and that rides like a helicopter. Trying to fly will result in short hops and frequent crashes! Microsoft is the big bully...
...click. Democratic countries find that their options for political choice--whether in the realm of social policy, economic regulation or culture--are curtailed by the increased mobility of financial capital and information. Do you want to extend your social safety net a bit further? The faceless bond market will zap your country's interest rates. Do you want to prevent your airwaves from being taken over by Howard Stern or Baywatch? Can't do it, because the world of information is inherently borderless. Do you want to pass a law to protect endangered species in your own country? A group...
...what might this workers' paradise look and feel like? Well, for starters, technology will be "invisible but unavoidable," as Bob Arko of industrial designer IDEO puts it. The tangled cables that snake through every office, for instance, should disappear, replaced by wireless systems that zap voice, data and video through the air. Smart materials could make any surface or gadget feel like wood one day and metal the next. Intelligent chairs might conform perfectly to your posture, giving you a much needed back rub in the process. Embedded systems and biometric, body-sensing technology will enable every piece of hardware...
Levin's conversion to the wired future came in 1975, although the wires were different then. He was working for a marginal Time Inc. division called Home Box Office. The HBO idea--to zap movies right into the living rooms of average Americans--was simple, easy to understand and almost universally regarded as nuts. This was particularly true since HBO was incinerating money. Levin knew he had to gamble, and in a move that foreshadowed a liking for big deals, he persuaded Time Inc.'s conservative board to burn another $7.5 million for a slot on the very first communications...