New Technologies with Implications for the IOLTA Community

Introduction: Seven Technology Revolutions

        This paper highlights seven revolutions in technology that will have a fundamental impact on the way organizations do business and that citizens interact with each other and with organizations.

        Readers may disagree about the pace at which these revolutions will come to fruition. They are unlikely to disagree that these revolutions are on the way. Most importantly, regardless of whether these revolutions come to pass quickly or slowly, we all need to be prepared to take full advantage of their implications.

One: The Access Revolution - Cable Modems, Power Line Modems, High Bandwidth, Regular Phone Lines – Will Provide Broader, Faster and Cheaper Access.

        Rapidly coming to deployment is a cluster of innovations that will give far greater and far cheaper bandwidth – access-- to the ordinary user. New devices and new standards for deployment of existing devices will mean that existing "pipes" into the home -- phone line, power or cable lines -- will carry much higher volumes of data.

        Already announced are new standards for the phone and cable TV networks that will make it much easier and cheaper to install and deliver this high bandwidth to every home. Since at least three different sets of cable that already reach into most homes - phone, cable and power - will all be able to carry the full range of Internet and data services, we will, for the first time, see competition between providers.

        It is for this reason that many experts think that the market will solve the Internet access problem. Moreover, as more and more marketing and business moves to the Internet, corporations will have an ever greater interest in seeing that as much as possible of their target population uses this medium. (Interestingly, there is research evidence that phone penetration into low income areas is in fact much higher than officially reported; there are unreported lines that do not show up on census surveys.)

        There are those who think that increases in bandwidth spread throughout society far more slowly than those on the desktop or in the PC. The fax machine, for example, spread so quickly because all anyone had to do was buy one and plug it in. Bandwidth changes, in contrast, may require large system wide investments. It is interesting, however, that some of the newer bandwidth innovations can be achieved just by plugging a new box into the phone junction box or computer.

        The moral: we should be planning for a world in which all (or rather almost all) our grantees and their clients ultimately have instantaneous access – and at far greater bandwidth than we now enjoy.

Two: The Interface Revolution -- Voice Recognition and Synthesis Software, Virtual Reality Environments – Will Make Connection To Technology Far Easier.

        Current assumptions about the interface between users and machines defined by text, image keyboard and mouse are obsolete.

        Flat and touch screens, voice recognition, voice synthesis, virtual reality and wearable computers will soon mean that the interface between computers and people is far more natural and permeable.

        Voice recognition software is already in everyday use, although so far it still needs to be trained to each user. But ultimately the user’s profile will be stored on the Internet, so that there will be no need to re-train each computer that an individual uses.

        Obviously, this will make computers far more part of every daily interaction. In particular, flat screen touch screens on laptops are on the way -- goodbye mouse!

        On a related front, virtual reality environments -- what comes after TV to convey a complete experience of presence -- will blur the distinction between perceived and created

        reality. This will have great implications for court presentations, for evidence generally, and how people think about computers and reality.

        As screens get easier to use, design and interact with, and as they acquire voice, feel and texture, the power of this potential will become ever greater. Can we all remember how short a time ago it was when we first saw color monitors and most of us insisted that it did not make WordPerfect any easier to use!

        The moral: ultimately, our grantees and their clients will interface with the technology as easily as we do.

        The danger: ease of use could lead to standardization of processes and dehumanization of interaction

Three: The Information Retrieval Revolution – Web Editors and Search Engines For Multi-Media, Push Technology and Intelligent Search Agents – Will Make It Far Easier to Find Information and Change the Way We Think About Information.

        The current web research and information provision models are obsolete. New ways of storing and finding information, with much greater potential user control, are on the way. (An example is the Web Clipper that Handsnet is prototyping. The user fills in a questionnaire and the Handsnet software goes out on a regular basis to query part of the web for new information based on the user’s answers.) Other examples are the various technologies that "push" out video, messages, and images according to pre-set interests.)

        However the complexities of storage and indexing technology may require greater and greater design strategies and investment, potentially putting the non-profit community at an ever greater disadvantage. (The contrary view is that openness of these environments will make it easier to post as well as retrieve information.)

        The moral: Regardless of how these complexities play out generally, our community will need to find new ways to organize itself to store, index and retrieve information in competition with massive governmental and private institutions.

Four: The Presence Revolution -- Ultra-high Bandwidth, Real-time Video and Working Conferencing "Environments" Such As ICQ – Will Break Down Geographically Defined Ways of Thinking .

        Internet video, on-line conference environments, and the bandwidth revolution will largely eliminate distance. Already, relatively low quality video conferencing can be achieved over the Internet at zero cost.

        ICQ, a set of conferencing software protocols that manages on-line connection between members of groups of users seamlessly, is one of the most popular sites on the Web. This software sets up user chat, audio and video automatically. It "knows" when someone in your work group is online on the Internet anywhere in the world, tells you they are there, and offers to connect you together, using all your communications options, voice, video, chat, etc. As these technologies evolve they will make automatic connection routine and eliminate the current hard work of simultaneous Internet based communication.

        Indeed, since these technologies are no longer driven only by reduction in communication cost, but also by exponential improvements in compression algorithms and hardware, the technologies can be deployed very easily and are therefore now accelerating as fast as any.) These matters are explored in more detail in a paper by Reggie Haley of LSC.

        The moral: our geographical organizing model is obsolete – except to the extent that political jurisdictions fail to recognize its obsolete status. So long as courts retain their current structure, we have an excuse for doing the same thing.

Five: The Analysis Revolution - Instantaneous Statistical Analysis, Artificial Intelligence, and Real Time Simulation Software – Will Give Us the Power to Understand and Shape Our World.

        Software designers are only beginning to take advantage of processing power to analyze patterns as they occur: court and agency outcomes, poverty and eviction patterns etc. The software that makes this possible is a range of super-fast add-ons to databases and the use of new statistical techniques.

        Some such even look for patterns in a database, regardless of whether the user has identified a potential pattern for review. Currently we are lucky if we do the analysis at all -- let alone at the time of the event or when a decision has to be made. Just like the airlines with their completely almost software driven pricing structures, those who know how to bring together this massive information to portray the world and shape decisions will be the ones who can control their environment. We owe it to our grantees and clients to help them to develop the capacity to do this.

        The moral: IOLTA and Legal services needs to find the ways to harness this firepower to understand the response to the patterns that define the lives of our clients.

Six: The Identity Revolution -- Security and User Authentication Innovations – Will Remove Many of the Barriers to Transactions at a Distance.

        Biometric identifiers (finger print, palm, face shape, eye patterns), security software and user identification innovations will make net-based transactions standard. This will make possible court filing, contracting, purchasing, agency application and action, all at a distance, again eliminating geographic definitions, and changing the ways we all work.

        The moral: The office and court as the locus of activity are to be radically redefined.

Seven: The Mobility Revolution-- Mobile Computing With Radio Connection to the Net and PDAs – Will Enable Us to Be Connected Wherever We Are, Increasing Our Effectiveness, and Our Grantees and Their Clients Ability to Be In Touch When They Need To Be.

        Perhaps the technology being adopted most quickly right now, the personal digital assistant, PDA, further blurs the distinction between the person and the network. When mobile computing comes into its own, the connection we now assume from the desk will exist wherever we are, and as we wove around.

        The moral: The individual can be effective in many places. The unconnected individual is nearly totally ineffectual.

Conclusion: These Technologies Are Not Just About Efficiency, They Are About Redefining Relationships and Patterns of work. We Must Start Planning Now.

        Taken together, these revolutions will create entirely different working, organizing, litigating, and managing environments. If we are to start making the technological investments, the managerial and institutional changes, and the changes in our own thinking that will make it possible to keep up with the potential of these revolutions, we must start doing so now.

        Some have asked how long a time horizon our analytic and planning process should assume – two, five, ten or fifteen years. I find that question is less useful than it might be. It tends to take us into perhaps sterile discussions about the likely speed of deployment of new technologies. I find it more helpful to ask the question differently. "What do we need to know about the future now so that we can be confident enough to start to prepare to make the right choices so that we will be ready to take advantage of these opportunities when they do in fact become available."
 

Note: Adapted with permission from a paper, "New Technologies with Implications for the Legal Services Delivery System" by Richard Zorza, Vice President, Fund for the City of New York.

For a series of papers on technology and legal services see The Equal Justice Network at www.equaljustice.org and click on technology site.

Lucy Metting, consultant, for NAIP Soros Project, July 26, 1999. lmetting@mediaone.net.