We all know
that the communication revolution has brought about astonishing changes in our
society. Many of us have a computer, more powerful than those that controlled
the first lunar landings, in our pockets, which also serves as a telephone and
as a television. Such advances are a
revolution as significant as the one initiated by the Gutenberg printing press;
the difference is that we are in the midst of this new revolution. How are we to keep up with the new
technologies? Who can be our guide to
the new ideas that will shape the advances of the future?
Dr Suman
Kumar Kasturi, in this clear and concise book, provides both an overarching
metaphor and clearly-explained technical information which can serve to guide
us through the new technologies, and particularly the hybridized technologies,
that will shape the societies of the future. The metaphor at hand is
"satmass communication," by which Dr Kasturi means the merger of
virtually instantaneous satellite communication of information around the
planet, to even the most remote locations, with terrestrial sites where that
information is then made hyper-local through the application of artificial
intelligence technologies and distributed through the fiber-optic and aerial
transmission to consumers.
Dr Kasturi
tells us something very important here. The revolution of the "Gutenberg
Galaxy," as Marshall McLuhan might have put it, is nowhere near a close;
since artificial intelligence is in its infancy, and it will play an
ever-greater role in mass communication, "satmass communication" will
continue to change and to change our world.
And, as he suggests, to be informed communications, and to be informed
consumers of communication, we must understand the "satmass
revolution" in the same way that McLuhan argued it was essential that we
understand "media hot and cool."
The
distinction between "hot and cool" media has blurred in an age of
universal digitisation; the "satmass revolution" implies that the
convergence of media into digital forms means that rapid transmission of
entertainment and news messages from metropolitan centres can happen
instantaneously. And as governments free
up bandwidth previously reserved for military use or bandwidth-eating
commercial analogue communication, we can expect to see entrepreneurs and
scientists seeking to develop as-yet unimagined uses for that bandwidth.
Dr Kasturi,
with his depth of knowledge of both technology and society, here provides an
outstanding introduction to how a new generation of communication technologies
work, and how such advances will impact society. The concept of "future-proofing – "
of developing skills and knowledge which will guarantee that an individual or
firm won't be devastated by shifts they did not foresee – is gaining currency
throughout the world; this book, and the concept of the "satmass
revolution," is a valuable tool by which one might
"future-proof" themselves.
