The very nature of print itself has fostered a sense of truth; truth too is something which stays the same, which endures. And there is no doubt that this stability, this orderliness, has been a major contributor to the huge successes of the industrial age and the scientific revolution. (…)
But the digital revolution changes all this. Suddenly it is not the oldest information - the longest lasting information that is the most reliable and useful. It is the very latest information that we now put the most faith in - and which we will pay the most for. (…)
Education will be about participating in the production of the latest information. This is why education will have to be ongoing throughout life and work. Every day there will be something new that we will all have to learn. To keep up. To be in the know. To do our jobs. To be members of the digital community. And far from teaching a body of knowledge that will last for life, the new generation of information professionals will be required to search out, add to, critique, 'play with', and daily update information, and to make available the constant changes that are occurring."
1996: PALM PILOT
[Overview]
In the 1990s, Jacques Gauchey was a journalist and writer living in Silicon Valley and specializing in IT (information technology). He was also working as a "facilitator" between the United States and Europe. Jacques was among the first to buy a Palm Pilot in March 1996, and wrote about it in his free online newsletter. As a side remark, he remembered in July 1999: "In 1996 I published a few issues of a free English newsletter on the internet. It had about 10 readers per issue until the day (in January 1996) when the electronic version of Wired Magazine created a link to it. In one week I got about 100 emails, some from French readers of my book La vallée du risque - Silicon Valley [editor's note: The Valley of Risk - Silicon Valley, published by Plon, Paris, in 1990], who were happy to find me again." He added: "All my clients now are internet companies. All my working tools (my mobile phone, my PDA and my PC) are or will soon be linked to the internet." Despite fierce competition, Palm stayed the leader in the PDA market, with 23 million Palm Pilots sold between 1996 and 2002.
1997: DIGITAL PUBLISHING
[Overview]
Digital publishing became mainstream in 1997. This was a new step in the changes underwent by the traditional publishing chain since the 1970s. The traditional printing business was first disrupted by new photocomposition machines, with lower costs. Text and image processing began to be handed over to desktop publishing shops and graphic art studios. Impression costs went on decreasing with desktop publishing, photocopiers, color photocopiers and digital printing equipment. Digitization also accelerated the publication process. Editors, designers and other contributors could all work at the same time on the same book. For educational, academic and scientific publications, online publishing became a cheaper solution than print books, with the possibility of regular updates to include the latest information.
[In Depth (published in 1999)]