WEBVTT 00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:14.913 Hi, everyone. 00:00:14.913 --> 00:00:18.184 Welcome to our friend the computer. 00:00:18.251 --> 00:00:29.562 This is a project that uses history to kind of interrogate what it means to be a human in relationship with computers. 00:00:29.661 --> 00:00:31.731 I'm Ana Meisel. 00:00:31.731 --> 00:00:39.773 I'm a web developer, and I work in online education, and I'm with Camila as always. 00:00:39.872 --> 00:00:42.142 What's up? 00:00:42.142 --> 00:00:44.411 I'm a writer. 00:00:44.411 --> 00:00:47.280 Visual artist, filmmaker. 00:00:47.280 --> 00:00:48.280 Yeah. 00:00:48.280 --> 00:00:48.881 Yeah. 00:00:48.881 --> 00:00:51.151 Podcast host. 00:00:51.151 --> 00:00:55.088 Yes. And you are going to be screening some things, right? 00:00:55.088 --> 00:00:57.057 Yes I'm a filmmaker. 00:00:57.057 --> 00:00:59.325 And I have evidence of it. 00:00:59.325 --> 00:01:00.593 Yeah, I. 00:01:00.593 --> 00:01:05.864 I made a film over kind of the last couple of years. 00:01:05.965 --> 00:01:18.944 Pandemic really stopped me in the middle of the It's going to screen at a festival in New York at the festival because Prismatic ground, it's like a experimental documentary festival. 00:01:19.045 --> 00:01:22.048 It's running May 4th to May 8th. 00:01:22.215 --> 00:01:25.784 And my film is called Vecino Vecino. 00:01:25.885 --> 00:01:28.021 It's like 20 minutes long. 00:01:28.021 --> 00:01:47.340 The little thing that I wrote about it is against the backdrop of the 2019 Chilean social uprising Vecino Vecino deconstructs an archived TV news report about the MAPU Lautaro, a left wing armed organization who fought against the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile in the 1980s. 00:01:47.406 --> 00:01:52.512 So it's an experimental doc that kind of joins sort of this. 00:01:52.611 --> 00:01:56.748 It's me investigating and unpacking this kind of archival. 00:01:56.748 --> 00:02:00.686 It's a French TV documentary about this group. 00:02:00.753 --> 00:02:12.498 So I unpack it like based on the archival notes, but also the movement of the people and, and the like language. 00:02:12.498 --> 00:02:24.943 So a lot of my work look about Chile, which is kind of one side of my practice, my dad is Chilean, kind of my, my Spanish is sort of intermediate and I had to learn it myself. 00:02:24.943 --> 00:02:40.225 And so a lot of my work looks at kind of mistranslation and identity creation through kind of cultural documents, cultural texts and yeah, this like barrier of language. 00:02:40.225 --> 00:02:46.199 So there's also some sort of this French, Spanish and English in it. 00:02:46.199 --> 00:02:50.103 So there's kind of weird translations, I kind of subtitling and things. 00:02:50.103 --> 00:03:11.758 There is a, there are subtitles, but kind of the purpose of it, like with the project, the, which was also about Chile, the, the purpose of it is that some people won't be able to understand some things and some will be honest and others and I definitely put stuff in there that I think only Chileans will really get the importance of this. 00:03:11.790 --> 00:03:14.760 A song that I use, particularly that I don't translate. 00:03:14.760 --> 00:03:20.500 But if you know what the song is and what it plays over, it has a lot of meaning. 00:03:20.599 --> 00:03:25.270 But, you know, you still find meaning in it without that knowledge. 00:03:25.371 --> 00:03:29.141 This kind of different entry points. 00:03:29.241 --> 00:03:41.621 But yet I mean and I other news is that that project's red is red and justice peaches and bananas, which was how we met and a commissioned me for her platform external pages. 00:03:41.621 --> 00:03:43.889 And she coded coded the project. 00:03:43.889 --> 00:03:55.901 It's like an interactive web based documentary piece, but that is actually being published in an MIT journal called Thresholds. 00:03:55.935 --> 00:03:58.471 It's the 50th edition. 00:03:58.471 --> 00:04:05.844 The theme is before and after, and that project looks at socialist computer histories before and after the Pinochet dictatorship. 00:04:05.912 --> 00:04:10.949 And we it looks at Project Sebastian, which we talked about in our first episode. 00:04:10.949 --> 00:04:14.887 So that's going to be available from July 1st. 00:04:14.954 --> 00:04:29.668 But we're recording this on Friday 22nd of April, and there's an exhibition and that runs from today through to May 18th at MIT Keller Gallery through Cambridge. 00:04:29.735 --> 00:04:32.738 But then there's like a journal as well, right? 00:04:32.971 --> 00:04:34.040 Yeah, it's in the Journal. 00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:43.516 So I wrote like a little intro about the project, and then there's some sort of stills and captions and stuff about it. 00:04:43.516 --> 00:04:46.286 And it's really the journal looks really cool. 00:04:46.286 --> 00:04:48.754 Like it's a beautiful object as well. 00:04:48.754 --> 00:05:04.237 So and it's exciting to kind of have that project alongside all of this other, all these other amazing projects and research and, you know, I love academic journals, so I'm mostly just very excited to be in one. 00:05:04.303 --> 00:05:05.170 I know. 00:05:05.170 --> 00:05:08.173 A mighty press. Yeah. 00:05:08.341 --> 00:05:21.620 So I'm on the the the journal is available soon, July 1st, and my film is screening May 5th at Maysles Documentary Center. 00:05:21.721 --> 00:05:24.690 I'm in wave three, the memory of a memory. 00:05:24.956 --> 00:05:31.630 And you can purchase tickets from Prismatic ground, I think, through screen slate. 00:05:31.630 --> 00:05:38.071 So it's like a digital thing that you can just like view the person that they're doing. 00:05:38.137 --> 00:05:44.209 But I think the digital screening as well, but I'm not sure what the details we can put that on, it will put on. 00:05:44.209 --> 00:05:47.213 So yeah, I'd like to know because I want to watch as well. 00:05:47.346 --> 00:06:04.329 Yeah, but yeah, I guess we're going to talk about a different video Six Network today, which is the the Captain, which was a Japanese video tech system. 00:06:04.396 --> 00:06:07.199 And Camilla, you did so much research on this. 00:06:07.199 --> 00:06:09.168 It's like insanely impressive. 00:06:09.168 --> 00:06:13.139 I don't think I'll have that much to talk about, but we'll see. 00:06:13.172 --> 00:06:18.244 Maybe I'll chime in here and there, but I can't wait for this one because it's really, really good. 00:06:18.244 --> 00:06:18.877 Thank you. 00:06:18.877 --> 00:06:22.214 I always like to hear your your thoughts and comments. 00:06:22.314 --> 00:06:30.088 I guess we've been looking at a bunch of video tech systems in Europe, but I wanted to kind of look at what was happening around the rest of the world as well. 00:06:30.156 --> 00:06:39.999 So the idea and implementation of video tech systems really had swept through Europe in the seventies and eighties, but it did extend around the globe as well. 00:06:40.065 --> 00:06:47.038 They were often expansions of these European systems that we've looked at like, Presto and Mini tell. 00:06:47.105 --> 00:06:49.375 This includes some systems in the U.S. 00:06:49.375 --> 00:06:51.677 Canada had something called Teledyne. 00:06:51.677 --> 00:07:00.119 Both Australia and New Zealand had systems, and I think New Zealand's one was mainly focused on helping travel agents, book things. 00:07:00.185 --> 00:07:05.757 And I've seen this screen of like a travel agent booking system and it looks like it's on video. 00:07:05.757 --> 00:07:10.495 It's like it's, it's really like lo fi. 00:07:10.562 --> 00:07:13.132 And French minister was also trying to expand. 00:07:13.132 --> 00:07:16.668 They attempted an expansion to Ireland, the U.S. 00:07:16.668 --> 00:07:17.903 and Brazil. 00:07:17.903 --> 00:07:20.338 Actually, I think that it is its own protocol. 00:07:20.338 --> 00:07:24.843 I don't think that that their system was like a presto base. 00:07:24.843 --> 00:07:27.612 I couldn't find like what they called it. 00:07:27.612 --> 00:07:40.259 But this the like name for the for their system was called captain, which stood for character and pattern telephone access information network. 00:07:40.326 --> 00:07:41.226 Hm. I like that. 00:07:41.226 --> 00:07:42.461 I like that one. 00:07:42.461 --> 00:07:48.634 So the character and pattern part of this refers to an aspect that was unique to this Japanese network. 00:07:48.701 --> 00:07:55.875 It was able to transmit high quality, calligraphic and often pre-rendered text as images. 00:07:55.975 --> 00:08:02.447 So the system was developed by the NTT, the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation. 00:08:02.548 --> 00:08:20.098 It began with a test service in December 1979, which ran through March 1981 before being introduced in November 1984, originally in Tokyo and Osaka before being extended to other major cities in 1985. 00:08:20.165 --> 00:08:34.913 So since the 1960s, a national slogan for Japan's future direction and government policy was the term jaka or Informatization, which is a great word for limitation. 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:44.789 It signified a move towards a more information on knowledge oriented society, with information industries being important for the Japanese economy. 00:08:44.856 --> 00:08:51.464 This was a discussion happening in many countries and among sociologists like Daniel Bell, Tessa Maurice Suzuki. 00:08:51.464 --> 00:08:56.869 In her book Beyond Company, Topia, explains Bell's vision of the information society. 00:08:56.869 --> 00:09:27.700 Though this term was actually coined in Japan and credited to Hashi Yuichi ARU, and she explained it as in a quote, embracing the growing role of organized theoretical research in industry, the increasing importance of information as a source of value, the shift of employment from agriculture, industry or services to the information sector, the computerization of society and the fusion of computer and communications technologies. 00:09:27.799 --> 00:09:33.505 So over the decades, the way to achieve this goal shifted with changing technologies. 00:09:33.572 --> 00:09:43.014 And in the seventies and eighties, there was a growth of interest in new forms of communication and how that might lead to new forms of societal structures and participation. 00:09:43.081 --> 00:09:52.191 And some researchers were even beginning to look at the possibility of services and applications with democratic possibilities such as electronic voting. 00:09:52.291 --> 00:10:16.849 Japanese sociologist Eunji Masuda, recognized by many as the father of the Information Society, wrote several reports for the Japanese government looking at possible social effects of computers alongside books such as 1968, an Introduction to the Information Society and 1980s The Information Society as post-Industrial Society, which I'm currently reading, and it's great. 00:10:16.948 --> 00:10:20.385 I think we might maybe do something about that in the future. 00:10:20.485 --> 00:10:27.793 So these issues had been debated in Japan from the sixties, and video techs was a way to enact some of the theory. 00:10:27.893 --> 00:10:40.538 It's really interesting how I mean, I've been thinking a lot about like especially having done the mental episode and how a lot of these technologies kind of came about in the eighties. 00:10:40.538 --> 00:10:55.921 The video techs, ones I keep thinking of, like how Marc Fisher always talks about the eighties being like the end of history, like the arrival of like this post ideological world pretty much. 00:10:55.921 --> 00:11:31.423 And I guess, yeah, I guess like with the invention of all these technologies and the fact that like the economy has shifted from industrialization to in for magnetization, mechanization, it yeah, like the invention of these technologies like really played a part in that in the fact that like the economy is like based on documenting archiving and like shifting numbers around and not like creating things, that's like very basic kind of take. 00:11:31.524 --> 00:11:38.264 But yeah, I've been thinking a lot about like the eighties as that kind of end of of history. 00:11:38.330 --> 00:11:42.033 Well, that's when I was born. 00:11:42.033 --> 00:11:44.636 I really I was the I was the end of history. 00:11:44.636 --> 00:11:48.707 Yeah, exactly. 00:11:48.807 --> 00:12:07.659 I mean, yeah, like, I think what's what I found interesting about this idea of like Japan having kind of this idea, this concept of informatization from the sixties is that and as I said earlier, that like the ways to achieve that changed over the decades. 00:12:07.726 --> 00:12:12.998 But it was, it was like it wasn't so much that maybe that tech was happening. 00:12:12.998 --> 00:12:17.102 And so then they were like, oh, the world was like, Oh, okay, let's follow the tech. 00:12:17.102 --> 00:12:19.839 And it just naturally was like a goal. 00:12:19.839 --> 00:12:26.946 And then and money was government money was put into developing technology to achieve that goal. 00:12:27.011 --> 00:12:29.447 Yeah. And stuff was being taken. 00:12:29.447 --> 00:12:35.553 Things were being taken up because there was a government policy around that. 00:12:35.620 --> 00:12:37.590 Mm hmm. Mm hmm. 00:12:37.590 --> 00:12:49.134 So Captain folded into a larger new media network called the Information Network System or I and S, which was originally proposed in 1979 by entities. 00:12:49.134 --> 00:12:51.035 Yes. Who sat De Katara. 00:12:51.035 --> 00:12:57.809 And I found this laid out in Tessa Ma Suzuki's 1988 book Beyond Utopia, which I mentioned earlier. 00:12:57.809 --> 00:13:12.792 The the ions included different forms of communication, so audio, visual and data that existed on a large scale network made of glass, fiber optic cables and communications with satellites which replaced the then current copper cable telephone network. 00:13:12.857 --> 00:13:16.595 And it was a 20 year effort beginning with services in 1988. 00:13:16.595 --> 00:13:24.970 And they hope that by 1995 the network would have incorporated all communications networks like telephone, telex, video, text, etc. 00:13:25.037 --> 00:13:30.643 So I say this, but I actually couldn't really find references to the I.N.S. 00:13:30.643 --> 00:13:33.211 outside of this book. 00:13:33.211 --> 00:13:49.461 And this book was written in 1988 when when it started, I don't know if if this was just like a goal that they had and it was laid out or, or, or if it was the actual first use of like communication via satellite. 00:13:49.461 --> 00:13:50.196 Yeah. 00:13:50.196 --> 00:13:52.798 Like, I don't know if it because that's what we use now. 00:13:52.798 --> 00:13:53.097 Yeah. 00:13:53.097 --> 00:13:56.402 It seems like because the I.N.S. 00:13:56.402 --> 00:14:02.474 wasn't really mentioned outside of this book, I guess it was just like a vision. 00:14:02.474 --> 00:14:06.678 I can imagine it probably wasn't instantiated. 00:14:06.778 --> 00:14:09.782 I would like to know more about this, that maybe this. 00:14:09.981 --> 00:14:14.086 Maybe there's more information that's in, like, Japanese language stuff, but I. 00:14:14.153 --> 00:14:17.155 I couldn't find it. Sounds cool, though. 00:14:17.155 --> 00:14:27.298 So the Captain Video Text Network was accessed most commonly through a TV screen with a special adapter rather than a terminal. 00:14:27.365 --> 00:14:48.821 And at the start it was mostly providing like basic news and weather services, and while later it was kind of updated to include other services because of how it started, most consumers continued to think of it as a text based news and weather service and also had trouble, I think, differentiating it from television because of how it was accessed. 00:14:48.921 --> 00:15:00.131 And the second point was also an issue because teletext services, we're also beginning to be off at around the same time, which is text displayed on a TV screen alongside TV images. 00:15:00.231 --> 00:15:10.842 And I think we said this in every episode a bit like, well, teletext is a one way broadcasting information Video text services such as captain allows for two way communication. 00:15:10.909 --> 00:15:25.090 But Captain wasn't really utilizing this at the beginning and it was also so sort of solely broadcasting text right at the start, which when unfairly compared to television, could never hold its own, you know, or sound or moving image. 00:15:25.190 --> 00:15:31.297 And the same news and weather information was being presented on TV programs in a much more interesting way. 00:15:31.496 --> 00:15:44.710 So while captain had the ability to transmit high quality images and sound, most services remain text based mainly because anything more would take an excessively long time to load. 00:15:44.777 --> 00:15:46.110 Web 1.0. 00:15:46.110 --> 00:16:09.134 Ladies and gentlemen, the the system was developed to be able to transmit much higher quality color images than other systems like Minato or Presto and NTT felt that this would be a good marketing tactic, but it was also kind of necessary because the system was not able to store the amount of Japanese characters that were in use. 00:16:09.234 --> 00:16:29.620 So instead, entity developed captain to transmit certain characters as graphics through a dot matrix procedure up to $248 per line in 204 lines per screen way. So some of the characters were like transformed into other characters that would kind of work as like acronyms or something. 00:16:29.721 --> 00:16:30.188 I don't know. 00:16:30.188 --> 00:16:44.068 I think it was more that like instead of it being transmitted as text, they would like transcribed transcript of the word where a tech history of outcome of transcript. 00:16:44.235 --> 00:16:50.174 The like turn the a text based image. 00:16:50.241 --> 00:16:57.115 It's a text screen into an image all like the lines of of text. 00:16:57.216 --> 00:17:04.823 We're actually like little images rather than this is really about description I don't really have an answer I think I know what you mean. 00:17:04.823 --> 00:17:18.569 Yeah because I mean you get that issue now still with fonts as well, where it's easier to to write something out and then move those letters around an expert as an image rather than use it as a font. 00:17:18.569 --> 00:17:33.184 Because though the the letters will have like certain spacing in between and yeah, I guess if they didn't have the technology to like mess around with like letter spacing and line spacing, then it would have been easier to explore as an image. 00:17:33.184 --> 00:17:35.253 I think that that makes sense. 00:17:35.253 --> 00:17:45.864 I think it's maybe also that like the the systems had, they didn't have enough memory to to like hold all of the characters. 00:17:45.864 --> 00:17:47.766 Yeah right. Yeah. 00:17:47.766 --> 00:18:10.689 And so instead of like relying on the individual terminals or adapters or whatever to have that information or even like load the font and all the letters, it's more of a like downloading of a image rather than like loading the font and then the from the local town. 00:18:10.689 --> 00:18:12.691 Yeah. 00:18:12.758 --> 00:18:20.965 So this allowed for transmission, but like images, because they were images, it was exceedingly slow. 00:18:21.032 --> 00:18:30.241 Some screens could take up to 7 minutes to load and because because pages would take so long to load and the like. 00:18:30.241 --> 00:18:50.295 I guess the text images were smaller so they would load quicker and suggested that service providers have smaller, smaller like actual images alongside the text, hoping that users would be distracted by reading the information that they wouldn't notice how slow the images were taking to load. 00:18:50.394 --> 00:18:58.002 So and his his original goal had been to have 1 million subscribers in three years from the 1985 launch. 00:18:58.069 --> 00:19:02.840 But by 1992 they still only had 120,000. 00:19:02.941 --> 00:19:15.621 This was partly due to the public not being able to differentiate the value of the captain system from things such as television we talked about earlier and also later interactive telephones and PCs. 00:19:15.721 --> 00:19:41.946 So from the mid-nineties onwards, NTT began strongly marketing captains to a interactive capabilities that was for things such as home banking, but due to the slower loading times and because it was still mainly access not via the dedicated terminals but via the technologies, Captain was never taken up at a large enough scale to survive the arrival of the Internet, and the system was closed in March 2002. 00:19:42.013 --> 00:19:55.794 It seems a little while to me whenever I hear of these video tech systems, like trying to apply banking systems first in like their features, I'm like, How do they think that was going to be a good idea? 00:19:55.794 --> 00:20:02.267 Like people don't trust these new technologies to be able to, like, take their money and then send it somewhere else. 00:20:02.267 --> 00:20:20.285 Like in if you're thinking about kind of digitalizing populations that have no prior knowledge of like digital tech and are probably, you know, working hard to like, earn their money and go go to the bank and or like maybe even like use cash. 00:20:20.352 --> 00:20:23.154 Well would have definitely used cash then. 00:20:23.154 --> 00:20:32.798 Yeah, it's kind of crazy to me that some of these systems were like, Oh yeah, we're just going to launch like a banking feature and that's going to bring in loads of subscribers. 00:20:32.798 --> 00:20:42.173 It's like it's often I found it's like banking and buying tickets, like transport tickets, Train tickets, Yeah. 00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:48.646 So maybe those, those two things are the would have like the most impact. 00:20:48.747 --> 00:20:49.181 Right. 00:20:49.181 --> 00:20:58.123 Like, and I think I read something, I think that like around this time banks had very short opening hours and I remember that even from when I was a kid. 00:20:58.155 --> 00:20:59.023 That's true. 00:20:59.023 --> 00:21:02.027 Yeah. I mean it like doing the tags. 00:21:02.227 --> 00:21:13.771 Yeah. So maybe like the the idea of like being able to just do basic banking from your home actually was quite impactful. 00:21:13.771 --> 00:21:23.914 And I think maybe it's a two way thing with the security concerns because while yeah, like, oh my God, it's like a computer controlling my money at the same time. 00:21:23.914 --> 00:21:25.851 Maybe that isn't early on. 00:21:25.851 --> 00:21:32.089 There's not so much concern on security. 00:21:32.089 --> 00:21:33.858 Yeah, I just, yeah. 00:21:33.858 --> 00:21:54.813 If for some reason like I am always baffled by the fact that kind of forums and chats weren't introduced other than mental like these kind of entertainment, I guess services or kind of fun things that you can do with your friends or games or that was introduced sort of like later on. 00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:57.449 But I mean, I guess the answer to that is quite obvious, right? 00:21:57.449 --> 00:22:03.654 Because it's like by introducing these technologies, they want to increase the kind of rate of the economy. 00:22:03.654 --> 00:22:07.459 They want to increase financialisation and they want to make money. 00:22:07.459 --> 00:22:17.336 So it does make sense, like you wouldn't have like the Internet focused on entertainment industries or leisure kind of features first. 00:22:17.402 --> 00:22:29.146 But then but then when like Hollerith catalog came out in the States and they started using the Internet, for instance, like a forum and like a social media, I it was so kind of late in the game. 00:22:29.146 --> 00:22:48.400 I feel that anyway, that's just like but I think the difference here is that like it's a government project and Minotaur was different because while it was run by the government, they allowed private organizations to provide services. 00:22:48.467 --> 00:23:00.077 And so that's why I think there were these like chat rooms and entertainment services because that would get those organizations money because people were like engaged. 00:23:00.077 --> 00:23:05.951 But in this case, it's more about like digitizing the government services. 00:23:05.951 --> 00:23:07.419 Yeah, yeah. 00:23:07.419 --> 00:23:14.459 Too about the government's boring philosophy. 00:23:14.459 --> 00:23:21.732 Like we have anti-government, anti-establishment entity. 00:23:21.732 --> 00:23:26.203 Actually, we're like in the process of privatizing when captain was launched. 00:23:26.203 --> 00:23:29.207 So they started privatizing in 1985. 00:23:29.240 --> 00:23:35.247 And when that happened, other video techs protocols were kind of able to be developed by Japanese companies. 00:23:35.247 --> 00:23:41.219 So they weren't participating in Kapton, but they were trying to do other stuff. 00:23:41.286 --> 00:23:48.058 So this included a joint venture with AT&T to put a in put a system in Tokyo hotel chains. 00:23:48.125 --> 00:23:53.330 And there were also other companies who were developing partnerships with European countries. 00:23:53.432 --> 00:23:58.336 But the hurdle was that not all video tech standards were compatible. 00:23:58.436 --> 00:24:00.638 And so AT&T is American, right? 00:24:00.638 --> 00:24:03.642 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Cool. 00:24:03.775 --> 00:24:40.878 By the by the eighties, there were two main video tech standards being used in Europe, which we've talked about in previous episodes, the Presto View data system in the UK and the tell tale hotel system in France and that other countries were already investing in these systems when the Central European Telecom Organization C EP T set about defining a common video tech standard in the early eighties because there were multiple standards across countries and with companies and service providers spending money developing applications for specific standards, it was difficult to form a unified, connected service. 00:24:40.979 --> 00:24:49.054 Cooperation was also resisted as countries who had developed their own standards were holding out hope that this would be the one to gain global traction. 00:24:49.119 --> 00:24:55.460 So the CFP ended up establishing four main profiles CBT one, which was the German Btecs. 00:24:55.493 --> 00:24:56.260 How do you say that? 00:24:56.260 --> 00:25:01.633 And what's the actual build text I think you're doing? 00:25:01.633 --> 00:25:04.568 You're going to do a little episode on that coming up. 00:25:04.568 --> 00:25:05.436 Oh yes. 00:25:05.436 --> 00:25:29.027 See if you to see EP two, which is French Minutes, how three British press Dell and four which is Swedish Presto plus Yeah that's really interesting that you have the P the kind of Central European telecom organizations put under this like stamp the CPT stamp when they didn't really have they weren't really that kind of technically connected. 00:25:29.027 --> 00:25:33.731 But then you had like the American ARPANET, just like boom in the meantime. 00:25:33.832 --> 00:25:44.843 Yeah, I mean, I guess we saw it with the Intel and Presto episode cards where, yeah, I mean, they kind of developed similar at similar times, but they weren't like compatible. 00:25:44.843 --> 00:25:46.644 They weren't compatible with each other. 00:25:46.644 --> 00:25:59.624 And so I guess this was just a way of trying to, I don't know, maybe it's like trying to stop others from developing things and trying to make those or the other countries like really get the project right. 00:25:59.723 --> 00:26:09.099 Yeah, well, I mean, I will go I think I'm going to go into depth a little bit about that in the work net episode. 00:26:09.200 --> 00:26:16.307 And I think we're also doing a kind of bonus episode about the Brazilian Minato system. 00:26:16.307 --> 00:26:22.580 So it'll be interesting to kind of look at how the French network expanded. 00:26:22.780 --> 00:26:29.820 Yeah, also interesting that it's seeped because central European time. 00:26:29.887 --> 00:27:02.386 So an set, it's very close, very close to the I just because it seems like it they were with with the kind of acronym C PTA it's almost like they were trying to initialize a a type of like standard, you know, like a type of, like computing standard, like a Central European standard, which wasn't like a time zone, but it was like computer was like a weird conspiracy theory. 00:27:02.386 --> 00:27:05.289 But yeah, conspiracy theory, absolutely. 00:27:05.289 --> 00:27:11.762 But I so I guess when I was researching this podcast, I found this in the minutes. 00:27:11.762 --> 00:27:14.332 So episode research too. 00:27:14.332 --> 00:27:20.838 I think I talked about it in that episode, but these are different viewpoints that come across in articles from the U.S. 00:27:20.838 --> 00:27:22.941 versus the rest of the world. 00:27:22.941 --> 00:27:33.183 I found a New York Times article from 1984, which wasn't that useful for the research, but interesting to think about the way these technologies and societies are framed. 00:27:33.250 --> 00:27:39.557 It's called the Japanese Challenge Japan's drive to automate and include subheadings like trailing U.S. 00:27:39.557 --> 00:27:45.963 companies, competition, stressed, weakened building systems and a little bit afraid. 00:27:46.030 --> 00:27:52.703 It also heavily advocates for deregulation, which was a debate happening at the time of publication in Japan. 00:27:52.770 --> 00:28:01.546 And like many of the other video tech systems in other countries, Captain was originally a government run project administered by the postal and telephone agency. 00:28:01.779 --> 00:28:14.325 And as we talked about earlier, in 1985, just as captain was being widely launched, entity was privatized, that the the Ministry of Finance still held the majority of the shares like throughout the eighties. 00:28:14.325 --> 00:28:31.843 Interesting technology housing societies in the early days was really kind of manipulated a lot as almost a type of propaganda that would endorse the nation that it's set in or maybe just like antagonize its enemy states. 00:28:32.076 --> 00:28:45.923 Like in know fifties America computers were seen as as socialist and like red and inherently sort of evil because it turned humans into workers or robots. 00:28:45.990 --> 00:28:50.228 Also like the word robot is it's like a Czech word robot. 00:28:50.228 --> 00:28:52.696 That means to work. 00:28:52.696 --> 00:28:54.065 Really? Yeah. 00:28:54.065 --> 00:28:54.566 Yeah. 00:28:54.566 --> 00:29:05.710 So like, so technology and robots were like, seen as like this, this evil that would like turn society and just into just like a working dystopia. 00:29:05.777 --> 00:29:12.549 But yeah and that but that was in the fifties that was like way before digital technologies were really invented or used. 00:29:12.650 --> 00:29:19.824 But this was yeah, before also cybernetics boomed. 00:29:19.824 --> 00:29:27.932 And then in the sixties, America took on cybernetics in government through military industries. 00:29:27.999 --> 00:29:46.651 So the role or popular reputation in the kind of straight or Republican rhetoric of the computer in society completely flipped once they found a way to like, implement it for their own political power and yeah, it's been interesting. 00:29:46.651 --> 00:29:58.930 You know, we started our first with our first two episodes of projects from like the sixties and early seventies and then moving through to eighties, nineties and seeing that change. 00:29:58.997 --> 00:30:05.170 And this article, it's basically like a, you know, a us, a US article, yeah. 00:30:05.202 --> 00:30:14.945 Advocating for the privatization of Japan's telephone network without kind of much knowledge. 00:30:14.945 --> 00:30:20.184 There's like not much in the article that really explains why it's just like because privatization is good. 00:30:20.250 --> 00:30:29.760 Yeah yeah yeah It's so like in this article, it's like the decades of research, discussion and movement towards an information society is sort of lost. 00:30:29.827 --> 00:30:33.330 This is a this is a quote from the article. 00:30:33.397 --> 00:30:38.169 Several factors have hindered development of automated communications networks in Japan. 00:30:38.169 --> 00:30:47.979 One is that the Japanese have tended to stress development of individual pieces of equipment that have been weak in organizing them into complex systems and inviting the software to run them. 00:30:48.046 --> 00:30:52.951 Another factor has been strict regulation, which is thwarted use of advanced technologies. 00:30:52.951 --> 00:31:10.634 For example, the phone company is a monopoly which prevents entrepreneurial companies from setting up advanced computing, which prevents entrepreneurial companies from setting up advanced computer communication systems, which I mean that like it's just sort of not true, right? 00:31:10.667 --> 00:31:27.218 I mean, in in a sense that like, it doesn't have to be the case like we saw with Minato, the kind of joint public private venture made was what caused municipal to be so successful and sort of just being like, well, they're behind. 00:31:27.384 --> 00:31:31.689 They're not good at organizing this stuff into complex systems. 00:31:31.756 --> 00:31:36.728 So it's it's, it's just not it's kind of not true. 00:31:36.794 --> 00:31:40.964 I mean, I don't think regulation has anything to do with it. 00:31:40.964 --> 00:31:58.583 Like I would say, it's just like maybe like bad project management in terms of which could happen anyway, which could happen anywhere with in terms of like seeing, see, seeing the potential of the technology and what it can do and what the society would actually benefit from. 00:31:58.682 --> 00:32:02.086 Regulation doesn't have anything, especially financial regulation. 00:32:02.086 --> 00:32:37.321 I don't see how that has anything but yeah, I yeah, I also I disagree, but I think there's also just this feeling and this just even from this quote of like and the and the little titles like we can building systems trailing us companies of of like a fear that Japan is going to take over the US like in the mid nineties the US started to use rhetoric like the information superhighway and also began really positioning US tech companies as globally competitive, particularly against the Japanese market. 00:32:37.387 --> 00:32:57.342 But this notion sort of moved to Japan as well and there was a general feeling of this like needing to catch up with the US, which was a prominent concept in the Japanese press and tech literature such as Glenn Fukushima's 1995 book, The Threat of the Super Highway The Crisis of the Annihilation of the Japanese Information Industry. 00:32:57.407 --> 00:33:03.247 And and we saw this in Minato, too, with this idea of like the French delay. 00:33:03.314 --> 00:33:11.221 This feeling of them like needing to catch up to the US, but really, like these countries are sort of doing their own thing. 00:33:11.221 --> 00:33:14.858 They weren't technologically behind. 00:33:14.925 --> 00:33:25.536 It was just that like when the I think like when the internet sort of came through, they'd been working on their own projects and so they went like, yeah, in line with the U.S. 00:33:25.536 --> 00:33:34.045 but they were sort of on their own tracks and had all of the like thinking and theory and, you know, yeah, dreams and dreams and plans as well. 00:33:34.045 --> 00:33:37.214 Yeah. And still the like ARPANET was. 00:33:37.382 --> 00:33:47.325 And when they started using the term information superhighway, that was, that was a state funded like it's just funny because the the U.S. 00:33:47.325 --> 00:34:02.740 was only like slightly more advanced with tech at that point because of the sixties kind of influx of state funding to tech industries and organizations because of that fear of of of having to. 00:34:02.740 --> 00:34:17.989 But they kind of wanted to overcome the Soviets tech headway and like Cosmo techniques in the in the fifties so they just like poured loads of money into tech industries and that was all, that was all military funded, that was all state funded. 00:34:17.989 --> 00:34:30.134 So yeah, like again, you have this rise of technology that progressing due to nations trying to like one up each other or they were just like scared of each other. 00:34:30.233 --> 00:34:30.434 Right. 00:34:30.434 --> 00:34:36.773 But it's also, it's also like about this, this idea of like national autonomy and not wanting to rely on international. 00:34:36.773 --> 00:34:37.942 Yeah. 00:34:37.942 --> 00:34:40.945 Which was seen in pretty much all of these projects. 00:34:41.045 --> 00:34:46.983 So Japan really strong in development and production of hardware like that is true. 00:34:47.050 --> 00:34:49.186 But that was sort of because of this. 00:34:49.186 --> 00:34:52.190 Yeah. Like national autonomy idea. 00:34:52.255 --> 00:34:58.695 And it did mean that there had been not like such there wasn't such a big focus on the development of software. 00:34:58.795 --> 00:35:06.503 I did find a quote from an article titled Reconciling Vision and Reality in Japan's into Policy from 1986. 00:35:06.570 --> 00:35:19.784 So this is a quote Despite the desirability to shift from producing tangible, hard to intangible soft goods, Japan has not become a major worldwide supplier of software and other intangible information technology products. 00:35:19.884 --> 00:35:31.896 Thus far, Japan's role in the global computer industry has remained primarily in electronic components and peripherals, with a limited role in complete computer systems and in negligible role in software. 00:35:31.963 --> 00:35:39.402 Public policy debates on information technology is still dominated by considerations of manufacturing and selling hardware. 00:35:39.503 --> 00:35:43.608 But we can also look back to the shift after the Second World War, right? 00:35:43.641 --> 00:35:47.577 Like when many new technologies had been developed. 00:35:47.644 --> 00:36:04.862 Mara Suzuki points out that quite by the second half of the fifties, when Japanese companies were beginning to have the capital necessary for major imports of technology, there was a large supply of tested and tried foreign knowhow available for them to choose from. 00:36:04.929 --> 00:36:15.039 So yeah, like they were using sort of international tech because they hadn't had the ability to develop them themselves. 00:36:15.106 --> 00:36:18.708 However, like by the late sixties there was a real shift in attitude around this. 00:36:18.708 --> 00:36:37.561 So as as Japan began being seen as on their way to being a major industrial power and competition, European and United States companies were not so willing anymore to provide their technology to Japan, and Japan began focusing on developing their own products and on technological exports. 00:36:37.561 --> 00:36:45.603 And another quote from our Suzuki a wholehearted national commitment to research and development for technological nation building. 00:36:45.670 --> 00:37:00.717 Ha! So Japan was a major industrial power in terms of creating hardware and then the US and Europe stopped kind of providing their technology to Japan. 00:37:00.784 --> 00:37:14.731 But that like that is just such a dumb move because obviously they're just going to, like you said, with this, with this like sovereign, independent nation attitude as well. 00:37:14.731 --> 00:37:20.036 You just start creating your own technology and you start creating your own software with your hardware. 00:37:20.036 --> 00:37:32.550 And yeah, that's just it's kind of kind of sad that the US and European nations didn't want to kind of collaborate and just saw like Japan as a threat. 00:37:32.617 --> 00:37:34.418 Well, we see that in that article. 00:37:34.418 --> 00:37:45.463 You know, it's like, it's like, oh, they're the other and they're like the idea is that they're very you know, they're getting really good at tech but don't worry. 00:37:45.528 --> 00:37:50.701 Like, they're not really like they have all these issues but like, yeah, I don't know. 00:37:50.701 --> 00:37:53.670 Just this, you know, it all comes after the war. 00:37:53.670 --> 00:37:55.072 Yeah, it all comes from the war. 00:37:55.072 --> 00:38:10.253 And also this like kind of fear of the east, you know, because that was also what exactly what happened with OG US and ARPANET kind of OGs being the Soviet Internet and ARPANET is invented as to combat that. 00:38:10.320 --> 00:38:13.556 And the Cold War was very real at that time. 00:38:13.556 --> 00:38:27.070 And, and maybe also like with this fear of Japan, I don't know, maybe there is also kind of this like racist attitude towards the East to me because just like in the east, yeah, it's coming from the east. 00:38:27.070 --> 00:38:31.041 So therefore it's like other and it's like bad, right? 00:38:31.141 --> 00:38:39.016 But you know, the truth is that they were doing so much work in this area and important work that influenced the rest of the world. 00:38:39.115 --> 00:38:47.057 So, so there was a series of important government papers in Japan on the topic of the information society. 00:38:47.157 --> 00:39:16.686 So from 1969, with Japan's Information Society themes and visions through to 1983, with the Information Society and Human Life, other other papers include policy outlines for promoting the information ization Informatization of Japanese Society 1969 The Plan for an Information Society 1971 and Signposts to a Prosperous Information Society 1981. Hmm. 00:39:16.753 --> 00:39:19.590 Well, so utopian. Yeah, totally. 00:39:19.590 --> 00:39:26.697 So it's like through the decades these, plans for Informatization became really complex and nuanced. 00:39:26.731 --> 00:39:31.568 Another point that isn't it's not really like a fully fleshed out concept for me. 00:39:31.635 --> 00:39:40.277 I found this line in that article from before reconciling vision and reality, but I can't find the reference that they're talking about. 00:39:40.277 --> 00:39:42.346 So it's here. 00:39:42.346 --> 00:39:47.184 Hiroo, Matsu and Akira, 1991 is the reference. 00:39:47.251 --> 00:39:53.690 This is the can't argue that though this first information boom had little impact in Japan. 00:39:53.690 --> 00:40:02.400 It was exported to Europe, from which it inspired a similar boom in North America and started a second boom in Japan in the late seventies and early eighties. 00:40:02.465 --> 00:40:18.047 So perhaps while Japan's research and push for an information information society, you know, from the sixties was the beginning, by the time it came sort of back to them like that influence the rest of the world. 00:40:18.148 --> 00:40:33.396 But yeah, when it came sort of back to them, they were kind of on a different track or they went, Yeah, I don't know, something I guess what we were talking about before with this like disruption of, with this disruption of the way that tech was produced in Japan. 00:40:33.396 --> 00:40:36.367 I just, I found that line really interesting. 00:40:36.367 --> 00:40:37.501 Yeah. 00:40:37.501 --> 00:40:40.471 Because the 1880s was the end of history. 00:40:40.603 --> 00:40:43.407 Yeah. 00:40:43.407 --> 00:40:48.778 So yeah, everyone was was was behind track. 00:40:48.846 --> 00:40:53.050 But I think like history doesn't always have to be comparative. 00:40:53.117 --> 00:41:19.809 But it's also interesting to think about the ways that ideas can influence action across the globe, that these concepts that were developed in Japan were important to the US development, but Japan was pushing in these areas long like before the internet, before the US dotcom tech boom, doing all sorts of experimental projects and developments in telecommunications in an effort to change society for the better. 00:41:19.876 --> 00:41:36.626 You know, another quote from our Suzuki One very important aspect of the new media is that interactive nature, rather than merely conveying information from a central producer to passive as conventional radio and television, do they make possible a two way communications for? 00:41:36.626 --> 00:41:59.416 Consequently, proponents of the Information Society believe that they will not only bring regional communities closer together, but will also promote a more equitable flow of information between various regions and between various groups in society And that's a really beautiful way to think about how this information society can really affect individuals. 00:41:59.516 --> 00:42:03.920 Yeah, with with the kind of the introduction of two way communication. 00:42:04.021 --> 00:42:04.320 Yeah. 00:42:04.320 --> 00:42:24.041 And you know, I think also there could have been so much done like it's just nice reflecting back these projects because we can see where the project had failed and we can see how it could have therefore improved or how it could have continued. 00:42:24.141 --> 00:42:24.507 I don't know. 00:42:24.507 --> 00:42:33.751 It's just really fun to think about these like failed features, like this weather report feature and the what was the other one news. 00:42:33.918 --> 00:42:34.918 Yeah. 00:42:34.918 --> 00:42:40.157 And how they only kind of like displayed it in this in this passive way, just like TV. 00:42:40.157 --> 00:42:48.398 And I wonder if they could have expanded with this two way communication, like how these features would have progressed. 00:42:48.465 --> 00:42:58.876 And I just think about things like, I don't know, like an input system where everyone reports the weather around them and then kind of creates this like news, like weather news report crowd. 00:42:58.976 --> 00:43:03.447 It's like it's a crowdsourced like, yeah, a collaborative like weather report. 00:43:03.480 --> 00:43:05.682 What is that What do you know. 00:43:05.682 --> 00:43:09.320 Do you have that that out way ways? 00:43:09.320 --> 00:43:10.920 Yeah. Ways exactly. 00:43:10.920 --> 00:43:13.190 Or even just like Google Maps driving. 00:43:13.190 --> 00:43:20.563 Yeah, like Google Maps also kind of bases a lot of its like traffic reports on the speed that you're traveling. 00:43:20.563 --> 00:43:26.436 And they also like, ask you if you get the train, they ask you like, yeah how busy was your train. 00:43:26.469 --> 00:43:29.072 Yeah. 00:43:26.469 --> 00:43:29.072 And then they report like busy areas. 00:43:29.072 --> 00:43:29.539 I don't know. 00:43:29.539 --> 00:43:32.275 I just find it really cute, like reflecting back on it. 00:43:32.275 --> 00:43:39.583 You know, we have a like you said, we have a lot of the things that these networks were trying to build right. 00:43:39.583 --> 00:43:43.219 But to me, it feels a little very overwhelming. 00:43:43.219 --> 00:43:50.293 Like even though, you know, we access it all on our phone or on the computer, it feels like accredited banking. 00:43:50.293 --> 00:43:52.762 I have to go to this place to do this other thing. 00:43:52.762 --> 00:43:53.831 I have to go to this place. 00:43:53.831 --> 00:44:02.505 Like so the transit stuff, it's like Google Maps or whatever and whatever, and it's just like, okay, we have all this ability, but it's not central centralized. 00:44:02.639 --> 00:44:08.512 And I realize I realize that we're trying to like we're getting more into decentralization. 00:44:08.512 --> 00:44:10.514 So I'm not advocating for centralization. 00:44:10.514 --> 00:44:25.262 But I think, you know, if you think of like The Jetsons or, you know, like these kind of dream utopian, futuristic dreams that came through with culture in our society and stuff, it's often like a centralized thing, right? 00:44:25.262 --> 00:44:33.237 Like you have like one device that you go to and you're like, it's like the house robot and you talk to them and they can do all the things. 00:44:33.436 --> 00:44:38.041 But the reality we have is way more dispersed and there's pros and cons to all of this stuff. 00:44:38.041 --> 00:45:02.833 But yeah, well, also because of like, yeah, hyper privatization and all of these like tech startups spawning from original projects that like found kind of like a gap in the market that they can private privatize on and then invent an app and people start using it just because it's like slightly easier to use and navigate your life through it. 00:45:02.833 --> 00:45:11.275 But at the end of the day, you're just doing so much more admin and you're actually just like providing all these companies with so much data. 00:45:11.340 --> 00:45:20.550 And yeah, I mean, you end up, you end up being the worker and you're like hyper employed, as many people like to call it. 00:45:20.617 --> 00:45:45.342 But yeah, so I kind of want to actually like negate my point early from earlier where I find it inspiring to hear about the failed features because actually the failed features I think is something that I really desire Now where I don't want it to be a two way communication system, but I don't want to put in my information to like, see able to get something back. 00:45:45.342 --> 00:45:47.911 I don't have to want to make an account for everything. 00:45:47.911 --> 00:45:53.650 I don't want to give apps like my information, like I don't want to be a worker for them. 00:45:53.650 --> 00:45:57.554 And yeah, maybe this like web 1.0 or video text. 00:45:57.653 --> 00:45:59.088 I mean, teletext. 00:45:59.088 --> 00:46:02.893 You call web 0.010.0. 00:46:02.893 --> 00:46:09.833 Exactly would have been actually just really nice if it stayed around. 00:46:09.900 --> 00:46:14.204 Yeah, maybe it's just like the dream versus the reality of it, you know? 00:46:14.338 --> 00:46:37.027 But yeah, I had one final kind of comment on the Captain network on sort of this era of Japanese tech following on from Mara Suzuki, speaking about kind of joining regions and groups together due to these experimental telecommunications projects that were often targeting connecting rural and remote communities. 00:46:37.027 --> 00:46:41.597 Japan was a leader in telecommunications technology right up until the U.S. 00:46:41.597 --> 00:46:43.900 dot com era of the nineties. 00:46:43.900 --> 00:47:05.722 Television, radio, satellite, teletext, video, text, fax were all used and built out quite extensively and and though they went through updates, the sort of strong backbone of the telecommunications network I think is like remained largely unchanged even with the adoption of the internet. 00:47:05.822 --> 00:47:09.559 So it's not that all of the things were for nothing you know it built up. 00:47:09.693 --> 00:47:09.960 Yeah. 00:47:09.960 --> 00:47:13.396 Like a strong tech employed population. 00:47:13.396 --> 00:47:14.264 Yeah. 00:47:14.264 --> 00:47:19.268 The informatics ization of society was a success. 00:47:19.436 --> 00:47:19.836 Yeah. 00:47:19.836 --> 00:47:37.688 And like, I guess to try and get to that point and you know, like I said at the start, that it's this idea, this move towards the informatization of society started in the sixties, did all sorts of experiments and established all sorts of things to kind of achieve that. 00:47:37.887 --> 00:47:40.056 And as the tech change, they tried different stuff. 00:47:40.056 --> 00:47:48.097 So, you know, we're talking about kept in the video techs network because we've been looking at other video techs, networks and systems around the globe. 00:47:48.331 --> 00:48:00.878 But yeah, like it was part of a larger governmental and cultural movement towards kind of this a more positive attitude towards tech. 00:48:00.878 --> 00:48:02.913 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:48:02.913 --> 00:48:07.016 And I think that that was largely achieved. 00:48:07.083 --> 00:48:09.786 Definitely. 00:48:09.786 --> 00:48:11.221 Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. 00:48:11.221 --> 00:48:12.989 Yeah. 00:48:12.989 --> 00:48:26.503 So next episode I think is going to it's a bonus episode and it's looking at video Textor which is of the Minotaur expansion into Brazil. 00:48:26.503 --> 00:48:34.010 We're going to be looking at it through the context of art cool of video, text, artwork. 00:48:34.010 --> 00:48:35.646 Really? 00:48:35.646 --> 00:48:36.179 Yeah. 00:48:36.179 --> 00:48:43.719 Origin that art or video video starts videos. 00:48:43.719 --> 00:48:46.923 I mean, if it was a network that it was net net art. 00:48:46.989 --> 00:48:48.224 That's so cool. 00:48:48.224 --> 00:48:50.193 So that's the end of episode. 00:48:50.193 --> 00:49:00.536 If you enjoyed this, please, uh, you know, give us, give us some little stars or maybe like a semi viral tweet that we have a semi viral one. 00:49:00.536 --> 00:49:03.373 So if you want to go see, see what that is? 00:49:03.373 --> 00:49:07.643 We're on Twitter. Our friend comp full name is too long. 00:49:07.643 --> 00:49:10.547 Our Instagram, our friend, the computer. 00:49:10.547 --> 00:49:10.813 Yeah. 00:49:10.813 --> 00:49:21.724 So yeah, we like to post a lot of screenshots from old computer magazines because that is what I do in my state. 00:49:21.791 --> 00:49:23.092 That's really good. 00:49:23.092 --> 00:49:30.233 I admire your index, like visual research and all of these because I'm so lazy. 00:49:30.233 --> 00:49:31.702 I just like Google image, everything. 00:49:31.702 --> 00:49:38.240 I don't actually go into any online archives or like my favorite narrator. 00:49:38.240 --> 00:49:42.579 I know you, me, and I'm so busy. 00:49:42.579 --> 00:49:56.059 I'm like, If it takes more than like five clicks till I get to an image, I'm like, I'm not doing it, but, you know, there it is. 00:49:56.059 --> 00:49:59.295 So that's probably going to just secret like research. 00:49:59.295 --> 00:50:02.965 I mean, that's going to go into like feature episodes. 00:50:03.032 --> 00:50:03.900 No, I'm just kidding. 00:50:03.900 --> 00:50:08.271 I research all of my episodes and you do a lot of good research. 00:50:08.505 --> 00:50:11.407 Thank you. 00:50:11.407 --> 00:50:17.981 Should go to that next one to go like so that was super. 00:50:18.081 --> 00:50:19.750 Yeah, that Saturday. 00:50:19.750 --> 00:50:24.153 And yeah, we'll see you in the next one by.