Peter's after-dinner remarks will continue what's become a chapter tradition of opening our fall season with his assessment and forecasts for key technologies in computing, communications, and business and technical applications thereof. His one-hour talk will span the range from nanometer chip fabrication techniques to worldwide multi-gigabit networks and will include time for questions and discussion. 

Before becoming a full-time writer in 1989, Peter held project management and technical positions with Exxon and The Aerospace Corporation. Peter holds degrees from MIT and the Pepperdine School of Business and is active as an amateur radio operator, community Web site operator, and euphonium soloist and instrumental composer. 

His first chart addressed the current hot topics at PC Week: Mobility, The Global Economy, (In)Security, Industry Consolidation, Open Source Software, A Focus on Quality: Off The Upgrade Treadmill, Applications as Services, E-Environment, The Post Y2K Paradigm, Info Appliances, and Virtual Private Networks. He made a few comments on each, including: 

• Mobility goes hand-in-hand with wireless connectivity, as it is better than plugging into some kind of land-line out in the field even though these are increasingly available. 
• Encryption technology is required and neither the technology nor the needs stops at the U.S. border. All the major players have overseas branches. 
• Open Software, with Linux as a current major example, is finally being made to work; however many companies still want to know that there is a support group backing up the software they use. 
• Companies are also becoming more reluctant to buy the latest releases of software. (Windows 3.1 outsold Windows 95 for many months.) They want to make their own choices on when to upgrade and not be forced into it by the software companies. 
• The Y2K effort has delayed new software activity. Y2K problems are now down to the "noise" level of general software problems that are always with us, but an immense amount of money has been spent trying to avoid lawsuits. The new problem is Y2KA, the aftermath, the bugs that were introduced with Y2K fixes. 
• More and more information appliances are being dispersed, frequently with wireless communication. 

Commerce on the Internet will greatly increase when micropayment makes small purchases easy and safe. It's not easy being global. Iridium needed local cooperation but threatened national controls. Voice and data are converging and one of the problems that has occurred with the Iridium communication satellite system is that it is designed primarily for voice communication. Since it was originally designed, cellular phone technology has reached the largest segments of the population. Iridium offers communication opportunities to people outside of cellular areas, but this consists of large areas without many people in them and could be described as offering "Broadband to Penguins". The Iridium system was named after the element whose atomic number is 77, the projected number of operational satellites. The number of satellites was reduced to 66 but Dysprosium doesn't have the same ring, and the early name remains! Peter Coffee said, "Imagery Changes Everything". 

Digital cameras are now mainstream. One down side is that no image can be trusted because video editing is so good. Audio evidence is also a lost cause since (with a few recorded examples of a person's voice) a nearly perfect voice reconstruction, saying anything, can be produced. 

Security is everyone's concern. Recently, the contents of Hotmail accounts were found easily accessible. And Microsoft's ActiveX has shown much vulnerability. Java has good security if it is implemented to its specification, but many organizations implement extensions that contain security loopholes. As for encryption, 512 bit keys were cracked last week. Crypto markets are international and their have been concerns about US software not meeting European privacy requirements. There is increasing irrelevance to the attempt of the US to restrict cryptography. The genie is out of the bottle and it can't be put back. E-mail is hardly secure; it is copied and can be saved at every node along the way. 

There are new demands on professionals - to be familiar with intranet/extranet component technologies, multi-tier/distributed applications, parallel and fault-tolerant computing, object technologies and techniques, Web/e-commerce opportunities and issues, and dealing with a nomadic work force. Managers duties have changed from the back office to the front office, from reporting after the fact to real-time, from dealing with internal to external users, from use of mature to bleeding-edge technology, from cost to Return-On-Investment (ROI) awareness and from backlog control to "time-to-market". There are many new opportunities as well as requirements for professionals in today's computing environment. 

This was first meeting of the LA Chapter year and was attended by about 36 persons. Peter Coffee, as usual, gave an excellent presentation. 
Mike Walsh, LA ACM Secretary