Software And Communication

A very general way of classifying information is based on its being structured or unstructured, i.e. on its appearing or being organised according to certain rules. Characters are a special form of structured information because they are the result of mental processes that imply a significant amount of rationalisation. Characters…

If art is defined as something that people take pleasure in producing, that contains something that different people agree is intrinsically beautiful and, therefore, connoisseurs can admire and talk about, some pieces of software could be defined as pieces of art. As for all arts, you have the practitioners –…

I have already mentioned that MPEG had to deal with the software aspects of its work from very early on. The first MPEG-1 Video Simulation Model, fully assembled at the Tampa meeting in March 1990, was still a traditional textual description but, at the first Santa Clara, CA meeting in…

After talking about one scourge of the hacker community – software licensing – it is now time to say more about another scourge – patent licensing. Instead of discussing the merits or demerits of patent licensing forms, I would like to make some considerations on the entire workflow that underpins…

From the very beginning MPEG realised that too many companies had invested in digital media technologies for MPEG to realistically target the development of Optionunencumbered high-performance digital media standards. That wisdom has served MPEG well for many years thanks to the (internal) ability to integrate the best technologies and the…

At the beginning of December 1970, I returned home after spending 30 months in Japan as a Ph.D. student at the University of Tokyo. That had been both a great and hard period of time for me. Great, because during the day I was fully immersed in Japanese life, being…