Putting the Hype in ‘Hypermedia’ : New Computer-Video Technology Generates Excitement, Few Buyers

For political junkies whose memories of the 1988 presidential campaign are already getting fuzzy, ABC News is bringing all the highlights back into focus.

Texas State Treasurer Ann Richards’ “Poor George” speech, blow-by-blow results from the presidential primaries, the Democratic candidates’ departure speeches, George Bush’s no-new-taxes pledge--all those not-so-memorable moments have been revived by the television network using a new computer technology called “hypermedia.”

A form of education and entertainment that seems destined to explode over the next few years, hypermedia computing is a marriage of Silicon Valley and Hollywood--a merging of the personal computer, television and video into a new medium.

By linking together a laser disc player, a television set and a personal computer, users can travel freely through text, video scenes, animation, diagrams and photographs as well as narration, conversation and music.

In “Vote ‘88,” produced by a unit of ABC, a wealth of statistical information and video footage, gathered mostly during the campaign, is at a user’s fingertips.

By clicking the computer’s pointing device, called a mouse, a user can zip through each candidate’s stand on a certain issue or wander down a lengthy path to learn about just one candidate, all in a few moments of stream-of-consciousness computing.

A user who wanted to focus, for example, on the presidential campaign of Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., would, with a click of the mouse, be able to watch his speech in Russell, Kan., in November, 1987, declaring his intention to run for president. By pointing to other choices on the computer screen, the user could examine Dole’s stand on 12 issues, study his primary vote results or review his biography.

In a classroom, the scenes could be projected to a group--which is exactly what ABC has in mind. ABC, one of the first companies to try to make a business out of hypermedia computing, has produced a $295 package that is being marketed to schools, where students and teachers will be able to customize the content to produce their own mini-shows. The company plans to follow this hypermedia package soon with a program on the Arab-Israeli crisis, based largely on ABC newscaster Ted Koppel’s journey last spring to the Middle East. ABC expects to produce 10 hypermedia packages a year for the next 3 years, though it’s not clear yet how large a market exists.

For the moment, however, there’s plenty of hype surrounding hypermedia, and much of it is generated by Apple Computer Inc., whose Macintosh computer is at the heart of ABC’s system, along with several others. Aided by Apple’s technology as well as its publicity machine, multimedia computing has generated considerable hoopla of late.

“We’re talking about a new way of delivering information,” said Tim Bajarin, executive vice president of Creative Strategies Research International, a California computer consulting firm. “The fundamentals of the technology have been there awhile. The blending is happening now.”

Despite dazzling promises, however, multimedia computing remains for the time being an infant industry in search of a wide audience. Numerous obstacles remain before hypermedia systems become relatively easy to assemble and enjoy more widespread use in academia, recreation and industry.

In Washington, several hypermedia programs are under development, aimed mostly at the education market.

For example, the National Geographic Society and Lucasfilm Inc. are developing a middle-school multimedia geography lesson that will enable teachers and students to customize learning.

The first in the series, which is known as “GTV,” is a visual and textual history of the United States. Users of GTV can watch video scenes shot around the United States, scan through some 1,700 photographs, illustrations and maps and study explanatory text.

A student or teacher selects one of 40 topics, ranging from the Civil and Revolutionary wars to immigration trends to the introduction of radio and telephones. On one screen, users watch full-color videos, animation or slides.

On the monitor of an Apple II GS computer, they find text with more detailed explanations. Periodically, they can reference a “time clock,” which updates trends in the U.S. population during the time period they are studying.

The system also allows students or teachers to create their own shows by entering a “keyword,” which retrieves all images and explanations related to the topic.

Sandra Lee Crow, National Geographic’s manager of educational research and development, sees such programs as “a way to use your computer to create a new way of looking at things.” She says the society expects to produce several more such programs.

Hypermedia, for all its apparent novelty, is a descendant of existing “interactive” computer-based systems that let users guide themselves through electronically stored information.

Typically, these “interactive” systems use full-motion video scenes stored on 12-inch videodiscs, the shiny platters that were quickly overshadowed in the home-movie-watching market by videocassette recorders. These laser videodiscs have been a hit, however, in government and corporate training programs: An estimated 100,000 players are in use nationwide.

With these interactive systems, text and video are displayed on one screen, and users are usually asked to make choices by touching the screen. The choice they make determines the next video segment they see.

The Pentagon uses interactive systems to train members of the military in using and repairing weapon systems. And at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., medical students are forced under time pressure to choose treatments for badly wounded soldiers lying in an uncomfortably true-to-life combat trauma ward.

But such systems are only the first step. They are “interactive” in that they let users make choices, and they are “multimedia” or “audio-visual” in that they combine video, sound and computer text. Now comes “hypermedia,” a term borrowed from the HyperCard software program introduced by Apple Computer Inc. in 1987. (Actually, the expression “hyper” dates to the mid-1960s, when the term “hypertext” was coined to mean nonsequential writing).

HyperCard, or similar software, makes it easy for users to do what computer aficionados call “navigating” or “browsing” through information. By including links between related information, users can springboard from one topic to another without having to move chronologically through information or consult a central index.

That’s equivalent to reading an immense book, finding a name or topic that you want to explore further and being able to instantly jump to related material anywhere in the volume.

Although it is possible to construct links using current interactive technologies, programmers say HyperCard makes it easier to make those connections. In addition, new systems using HyperCard-like software allow users to create their own mini-shows.

In its first incarnation, HyperCard was used with text and simple graphics. Now the same concept is being applied to information stored on videodiscs.

For users, assembling the equipment is simple: Hypermedia systems require only a laser disc player, a television set and a personal computer. The computer acts as the control mechanism as well as a storehouse for explanatory information.

Then, of course, you have to have the videodiscs and computer disks to run the program you want.

At universities, some of these hypermedia packages are already being used. Programs have been developed to teach Shakespeare, anatomy and foreign languages.

“This technology is going to dissolve the structure under our education system,” said Paul Saffo, a research fellow with Institute for the Future, a Menlo Park, Calif., consulting firm. “In 25 years we will hardly recognize universities.”

Meanwhile, for elementary schools, hypermedia programs under development are almost like games. One under development at Lucasfilm, in conjunction with the National Audubon Society, draws students into the action by asking them to probe why ducks are disappearing from their marshland habitat.

Using Sherlock Holmes-like methods, students rummage around a park ranger’s cluttered cabin, digging into his file cabinet and desk by repeatedly clicking the computer’s mouse. Students can “interview” experts lodged on the videodisc and learn more about the ducks themselves by clicking on illustrations of the bird’s body parts. They even can conduct an experiment, dropping simulated salt water onto plants and putting the result under an on-screen microscope.

Hypermedia systems can also be reference tools. A system at the Smithsonian Institution contains images of the National Gallery of Art’s 1,500-piece collection and is a first step toward true stream-of-consciousess computing.

Because of the links programmed into the system, users can jump easily to other works by the same artist, to artwork of the same period or to works containing similar objects.

For example, a user would type “horse” into the personal computer to find all works in the collection containing horses.

One by one, their images would appear on the TV screen. If the viewer were captivated, for instance, by Edgar Degas’ “The Jockey,” he could ask for biographical material on Degas, for more works by the artist or for more pieces from the same period.

In the latter case, he’d get, among others, Claude Monet’s “Rouen Cathedral West Facade, 1894,” and with it a video replay of a museum docent explaining the work.

Without great difficulty, the National Gallery system could blossom into an even more rounded cultural excursion. If the user were curious to learn more about life in 19th Century France, he could, say, listen to music of the day, study maps of Paris or watch segments of a play set in the period.

As one’s mind wandered, so would the computer.

Hypermedia has vast potential, but it faces several technical obstacles before it can enjoy more widespread use, said industry experts.

Obtaining appropriate video images is one of the biggest challenges. Sometimes a package can be assembled using images already recorded on videodiscs. A Palo Alto, Calif., high school instructor, for example, has combined videodisc images of earthquakes, volcanoes and other geologic functions with scientific diagrams stored on a computer.

A diagram on the computer monitor explains what happens during a volcanic eruption, for example, while on the television screen, Mount St. Helens explodes.

But often, custom video footage must be shot, which can be expensive because all the possible paths down which a user may want to travel have to be shot.

Copyright questions involving use of video footage also haven’t been resolved. ABC, for one, says it is allowing an exception from normal restrictions for students who create their own documentaries by piecing together clips from the campaign product onto their own videotape.

The practical obstacles, combined with the public’s slow acceptance of new technology, will likely keep these products out of the mainstream for several years, observers say.