| HYPE LIST
| Hype-List
Smart Drugs meme on the rise Just when it seemed smart drugs had gone the way of raves and brain machines, a new generation of supposed �cognitive enhancers� is being swallowed by the gullible. Perhaps it�s Prozac�s fault: it taught people with too much disposable income that brains are just a mix of neurotransmitters ready to be tuned to their needs. Or perhaps it�s a side effect of the resurgence of genetic determinism, which maintains that everything about us, from addictions to predilections, is chemically based. But intelligence has to depend on more than a steady intake of DHEA; otherwise Mondo 2000 icons Durk and Sandy would replace Dr. Weil as Time Warner�s favored hippies.
Wave Division Multiplexing meme on the rise Forget about the battle between the Netheads and the Bellheads, the new war raging in the telecom arena is between Opticians and Electricians. As before, the disagreement is over technical esoterica about how the Net should be built. But this time, the very stuff the Net is made of sits at the center of the argument: whether to use conventional electronic devices to route and multiplex packets, or the next generation of all-optical splitters and wave-division multiplexers. You might think the electricians would win because optical networks are inflexible and still poorly understood. But you�d be forgetting the lesson of optic-vendor Ciena Corp.�s recent IPO blowout: the future belongs to those who promise it to Wall Street, no matter how far-fetched the proposition.
Zero Administration meme in decline For the longest time, the computer industry was able to ignore the plaintive sound of economists asking why computers show up everywhere except in productivity statistics. Fingers pointed at users; perhaps it was their one-handed reading of alt.sex or their excessive installation of flying-toaster screensavers. But after a couple of accounting studies showed that � surprise! � computers require so much labor to maintain and support that it practically negates the help they provide, companies like Intel and Microsoft were forced to act. They wrote up a couple of white papers and invented a buzz phrase: zero administration. Now, if the Wintel duopoly gets its way, computers will once again become synonymous with productivity.
Cable Modems meme in decline Things were looking bad for the cable industry: careful study has shown that nearly the entire cable network would need to be replaced to make it suitable for two-way data traffic, and satellite services have been stealing away cable�s television customers at an intolerable rate. Then, in June, Microsoft made a US$1 billion investment in Comcast, the United States� fourth largest cable TV company, and suddenly cable execs were flying first class again. But despite widespread industry optimism, Microsoft�s money doesn�t presage cable�s victory in the Internet access wars. After all, Gates also has a stake in a satellite company and has been working with the telcos for years. All it really means is that more people will be subjected to MSNBC.
Augmented Reality meme on the rise Overhyped technologies don�t go away, they just come back with diminished expectations. Artificial intelligence, for example, gave way to artificial life, where instead of trying to make computers simulate humans, scientists struggled to make them simulate ants. Now virtual reality has returned in the form of augmented reality. Instead of replacing reality with a 3-D mock-up, augmented reality superimposes computer graphics on top of real scenes to assist surgeons and house builders. The excesses of VR � the gothic bodysuits, Jaron Lanier�s dreadlocks � are gone, but the conceit of geeks transcending the natural world with ray-traced polygons remains.
