Only a couple of blocks separate the computer museum at National Tsing Hua University and the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Hsinchu, Taiwan's capital of high-tech. But there are literally light-years between the museum's lumbering 1960s punch-card computer and the new generation of computers and software packages that are being developed in the institute's computer and communications laboratories.
The latest models are multimedia personal computers (PCs). When married to the imaginative new software and computer peripherals now being developed, they allow users to merge words, photos, video, data, and even music. In short, these PCs will make today's computers seem like artifacts from the Middle Ages.
What can multimedia technology do? A good example is the computerized version of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony developed at the turn of the decade by American musicologist Robert Winter. Winter's audio-visual program includes a complete digital recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and a video of the work being played by the London Symphony Orchestra, accompanied by written comments from the Beethoven scholar, Winter, himself. While listening to the work, users can match the melody to a visual score or call-up a biography of the composer. Unlike television or film, multimedia programs are intrinsically non-linear; with this one, listener-viewers can amble through the Ninth at their own pace using a mouse to point, highlight, fast-forward, and rewind. Or one can isolate the image and sound of one section of the orchestra, or even freeze the soundtrack to hold a single note. The program is a tool for music lovers at all levels, from Beethoven scholars to a beginning flutist who wants to practice along with the professionals. The program, "Ludwig van Beethoven—Symphony No.9," is available in English and Japanese through U.S.-based Voyager Company and Japan-based Pioneer Inc.
Researchers at the government-sponsored Institute for Information Industry (III) in Taipei are working on other creative applications of multimedia technology. At the institute's Technology Research Division, project manager Yeh Dowming (葉道明) and a team of researchers are developing a multimedia storybook for kids. The project is based on a popular Chinese story, The Tale of Three Monks, in which three monks find themselves without a bottle of water, leading to many arguments about who should be the one to fetch it. Yeh and his team are creating an interactive animated video of the tale. As in Winter's audio-visual adaptation of Beethoven's Ninth, Yeh's storybook will allow a teacher to freeze sequences of the video so that the class can interact with the animated characters by choosing various on-screen options and redirecting the storyline. "There are endless variations on the theme," says Yeh.
The storybook is being developed by graphic artists, educators, and video producers as well as computer experts. Much of the research under way in this new and evolving industry defies the stereotypical image of computer science as analytical and out of reach for lay people. Multimedia projects require artistic vision and creativity. Yeh Dowming, for example, is a self-described frustrated movie director. As a child, he dreamed of a career in entertainment. Though his academic career led him to a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Utah, he now finds his research incorporating entertainment with computer software. Yeh says multimedia allows users to "realize the artist in yourself."
What exactly is multimedia? Stated simply, the term refers to any technology that uses several modes of communication simultaneously. Because the technology is still in the formative stages, researchers have described it as an evolution, rather than a revolution, in computer science that is bringing together a great variety of hardware and software tools. The common goal in all of these technologies is to use PCs in new and interactive ways involving the human senses, especially sight and hearing.
State of the art—photographers merge slides with computer design by altering colors, shape, and content via multimedia graphics technology.
"What we are trying to do is optimize the usability and utility of the computer," says Kris Wei-I Chen (陳偉儀), multimedia project leader at the Industrial Technology Research Institute's Computer and Communications Laboratories. "Most consumers need computers they can understand with a minimum of effort." Chen is orchestrating an ambitious ten-year multimedia research program. Major projects include integrating fax, video, and modem; developing text-to-speech and speech-to-text capability; and expanding the use of "pens" rather than keyboards to input information. In each of these new technologies, the goal is to make computers easier and more natural to use. Pen-based systems, for example, can be used like a notebook; using a penlike stick, users write on a special board and the script is either displayed on the computer screen in their handwriting or can be converted into typed text.
To put these new capabilities to use, software programs are being developed that are relevant to various aspects of work and leisure including research, the arts, gardening, sports, and shopping. The pundits describe multimedia as an Aladdin's cave of glittering new communications tools—and toys—that will make life more productive, entertaining, comfortable and, perhaps, more confusing. Dennis Hu (胡天盛), executive secretary of Multimedia Consortium Taiwan, calls the technology, "a media that will change our entire lifestyle, our conception of communication and the way we see the world."
If all this seems a little far-fetched, consider that one multimedia product has already become a household word in developed countries worldwide, and has found its way into one-fourth of U.S. and one-third of Japanese homes: video games. By plugging a handheld game board into an ordinary television, Nintendo, Atari, and other video-game manufacturers have brought interactive computers to millions of users around the world, making video games multimedia's biggest success story to date.
In fact, the world market for TV peripherals, video products, personal computers, and video games—all principal components in the multimedia industry—is now estimated at more than US$150 billion annually. By the late 1990s, experts predict that one-third of this market will be dominated by interactive video programs in which users communicate with their PCs through sight, touch, and sound. And though only a few of these software programs are now available, the market is expected to boom as standards are set for PCs and peripherals. Robert Wakefield-Carl, product marketing specialist for Acer Sertek Incorporated, Taiwan's largest computer manufacturer, predicts three hundred software products dedicated to multimedia will be on international markets by this July, five hundred by the end of 1992, and two thousand by 1993.
Local industry analysts expect the growth of multimedia to be especially fast in Taiwan, in line with pro-growth government policy and an upgrading economic and industrial infrastructure. The computer industry is immersed in developing a number of hardware and software multimedia products using both government and private funding. In 1990, the central government's Ministry of Economic Affairs spent US$147 million on R&D for the electronics and information industries, US$20 million of which went to III alone.
Acer, which exported 800,000 computers in 1991, is also developing a number of multimedia software programs. Many of these focus on music. AcerMediator, for example, allows users to program their CD player to recognize a disc when it is inserted and to announce the title of each number before it is played. Users can also program the order in which they want a selection of songs to be played, then set an timer to play them at designated times, much like installing a personalized DJ in one's home.
Video is another promising area for growth, according to Wakefield-Carl. Acer is now working with researchers to solve the mind-bending problem of storing video data as efficiently as computer data, a process called compression. Currently, computers need 18 gigabytes of computer memory (enough to hold a library of thirty thousand novels) just to store thirty minutes of TV sitcom. Compression standards already exist, according to Kris Chen, and American firms are building the special microchips to do the work.
Dennis Hu—multimedia technology "will change our entire lifestyle, our conception of communication, and the way we see the world."
Even Formosa Plastics Group, one of Taiwan's largest companies, is getting into multimedia graphics and video products. Formosa Industrial Computing Corp., a subsidiary of the petrochemical giant, is focusing on graphics and has come up with original software programs that make it possible to watch television on a PC monitor. The latest addition to Formosa's software line is a multimedia video conferencing program that allows you to call several people in different locations and view them simultaneously on a single screen. Developed with central government funding, the product hit local markets late last spring.
Some of the most important local research into multimedia is taking place in Taiwan's citadel of high-tech, the Science-Based Industrial Park in Hsinchu. Here, Macronix International Company Ltd. for example, has produced both products and profits in the space of only two years by focusing on developing sound capabilities for computers. Under the direction of founder Miin Wu (吳敏求), Macronix's team of seventy-five electronics engineers and computer scientists are developing an audio chip—an advanced integrated circuit that will give enhanced sound options to computer-driven multimedia programs. Wu's goal is to create computerized sounds that are so true that not even the ear of a master musician could tell the difference.
Wu received a master's degree in science from Stanford University, then worked as a professional integrated-circuit processing engineer in California's Silicon Valley for fourteen years before returning to Taiwan to start a company. "No one can just jump into this business," he says. His long-term game plan for Macronix is to concentrate on developing sound capabilities, then visual capabilities, then to merge the two. Eventually, he plans to move into developing what he calls "next generation graphics."
To help build Taiwan's multimedia industry, a group of eighty computer specialists and entrepreneurs formed the Multimedia Consortium of Taiwan as an offshoot of the 4,000-member Taipei Computer Association. The consortium was created to promote the interests of Taiwan computer companies and high-tech research centers committed to the study of multimedia and to "give the industry in Taiwan a goal," says executive secretary Dennis Hu. It is funded through membership subscriptions and acts as a liaison between member companies and government research institutes. Hu, an Australian-trained computer engineer, speaks enthusiastically about progress made so far and the future of the medium. He says some members are already turning out multimedia software and peripherals.
U-Lead Systems Inc. of Taipei is one such company. The company is developing a video processor that will enable Camcorder users to edit video segments on a PC screen, in a way similar to word processing. Founded in August 1989, the 42-employee company, which also operates a wholly owned subsidiary in the U.S., already has a batch of ground-breaking programs on the market. One of the latest, iPhoto Plus, could have enormous benefits and potential in the publishing world, according to marketing manager Danielle Liao (廖信伶). She explains that the product is a form of image-processing software that enables users to display a video image, zoom in or out, alter the color, freeze it, and then transfer it to image-processing software for editing. Finally, it can be printed on a laser or color printer.
The product, which hit the market last April, is "especially good for journalists," says Liao. "Just take a Camcorder, shoot on the street, and then grab an image and use it for publishing. All you need is a VCR, a suitably adapted personal computer, a video camera, and a desktop publishing program." By "suitably adapted," Liao means a computer with an add-on card—a component that, in this case, gives the computer the ability to transfer video images to desktop publishing programs. Such an add-on is already on the market through Leadtek Research Inc. of Taipei.
Another local company working to merge different visual medium is Win Bond Co., based in the Hsinchu Science-Based Industry Park. The company has spent two years, and US$4 million, on its new multimedia product that links PCs with television. Win Bond's product is an integrated circuit—the smallest active component in a PC board—that allows users to "combine information on the PC and integrate it with images from the VCR," explains marketing manager Mike Lu (呂武勳).
It's a TV, it's a PC—it's both! Software programs like this can mix sound, visuals, and motion.
Despite the enthusiasm this new field has sparked among researchers, producing multimedia products is not a fool-proof venture. Some companies that got into the business early have been burned. For example, Fujitsu, Japan's largest computer manufacturer, launched a large-scale publicity campaign for its home-entertainment multimedia computer, "FM Towns," in the spring of 1989, but has met with only modest success to date. Analysts have charged that sales of the system, which integrates a PC with a CD player, stereo speakers, and a high-resolution color monitor, have been hampered by its high selling price: US$3,850. Now in its third year of market presence, the product has sold 150,000 units, a figure far below its target.
The example set by Fujitsu has led many local companies to cautiously survey markets before diving into product development. Then too, recessions have caused demand to fall in the U.S. and Europe, the hottest markets for Taiwan manufacturers.
One safe product for development right now seems to be integrated multimedia PCs, the powerful workhorses that drive multimedia software and peripherals. After all, without hardware, disks and mice are unusable. Acer became the first Taiwan manufacturer to bring a fully integrated multimedia PC component to market when it introduced its new AcerLive X-10 last spring. It is the first product from the company's multimedia development center near Taipei. Other local hardware makers have created individual add-on components that give PCs such features as graphics, sound, or animation, but Acer is the first to combine these features into a single unit, creating what it calls a genuinely integrated multimedia PC component.
When AcerLive X-10 is hooked up to any personal computer, it gives it the capability to merge text, sound, and graphics. Sold with a batch of multimedia software, it gives users the ability to create such multisensory programs as a product demonstration complete with background music and sound effects. T. Y. Lay (賴泰岳), vice president of Acer's product management division, calls the component, "an easy, cost-effective way to have multimedia without having to lay out the money for a new PC."
Hardware has traditionally been the backbone of Taiwan's computer industry. The sector grew steadily through the 1980s to become a US$11.4 billion business by 1991, US$6.5 billion of which came from export sales. The island is now the seventh largest producer of computer hardware in the world. Experts including David Dan of the Multimedia Consortium of Taiwan believe that the powerful hardware industry can help the fledgling multimedia sector by influencing the establishment of international standards. Helping to set these standards could position Taiwan well for cooperation with multinational companies now preparing to launch into multimedia.
Up until now, many of the international multimedia ventures have consisted of links between U.S. and Japanese companies. But multinationals such as Apple Computer Inc. are now eyeing Taiwan as a site for future manufacturing or research. Apple's launching pad into Asia was Japan where they now have joint ventures with Sony, to make components for a laptop version of the Macintosh Powerbook 100 computer, and Sharp, to produce a new line of pocket-sized personal digital assistants—electronic devices used to access computer data bases for news reports, stock analysis, and other information.
Today, Apple's Asia marketing chief Satjiv Chahil says the company hopes to repeat its positive experience in Japan in other Asian countries, including Taiwan. Although no definite plans have been announced in Taiwan, Apple executives claim the time is right to expand its multimedia line. "The new age is here and over the next two years we will start realizing it," says product development manager Paul Martin Wollaston. He stresses that applications in publishing and entertainment are especially promising.
Though much experimentation and research are under way both at government institutes and private companies, experts stress that multimedia is still at the tentative, try-and-see stage. They predict that the public will have to wait two to three years before the first generation of mass-produced multimedia devices roll off the assembly lines. But when they do, Taiwan seems set to become one of the major world players in the field.
"We are trying to link up with all the leading international players in the business and we have to do this through standardization," says Dan. "Standards are still being set and when they are eventually finalized, we'll support them." He believes that multimedia could boom as explosively as Taiwan's hardware industry did during the 1980s. "We have told the government that multimedia is a new opportunity for us to create another great success for the computer industry in Taiwan."