Customer Reviews

Digital Convergence: How the Merging of Computers, Communications and Multimedia is Transforming Our Lives

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The merging of computers and communications is changing our lives fast: this considers the future of such mergers, examining how changes in video, sound, text and image transmission will revolutionize our lives in a relatively short period of time. This considers not only the pros and cons, but the underlying technology involved in such mergers.

Andy Covell's book is a clear, informative presentation of both the history and development of technology trends, and as well provides a look-see into future technology solutions. The author discusses current and emerging 'digital convergence technologies' with network applications such as GIF, JPEG and PNG image compression, and audio compression formats like MP3 and streaming media. Throughout, Covell's tone is upbeat in this positive and enthusiastic analysis of 'the powerful effects of digital convergence.' He argues for the creation and regulation of national and international standards as important mechanisms for developing and protecting collaborative technologies in today's increasingly-global society, and marketplace. The easy-reading style of Digital Convergence, which features personal anecdotes, conveys a great deal of useful information; the author keeps his audience (likely the 'little guy' individual or small-time entrepreneur) in mind, as he weaves an interesting tale of enabling digital technologies - which 'facilitate human interaction and collaboration like no other technologies that have come before.'

Andy Covell's book, "Digital Convergence", is packed with information regarding the historical development and transformation of specific forms of technology. His ability to chronologically describe important technological advances and how they came to be is not only informative, but entertaining. He defines technological acronyms and allows the reader to better understand the emerging "lingo" that goes along with the advancement of digital convergence technology. Lastly, this book offers a well written over-view of the digital convergence phenomenon that continues to drive the evolution of technologies.

I would highly recommend this book to any one who is interested in having an intelligent conversation about today's, and forthcoming, communication and technology.

Andy Covell's "Digital Convergence" provides lots information regarding the conventional and current technologies. The author talks about the history and development of conventional technologies, such as telephone, prints, and radios, and how digital technology makes it differently. The author also discusses computing, digital communications technology, and digital multimedia in detail on each technology.

This book is faily easy to read for beginners who want to learn about digital technology because it provides definition and usage of some certain technologies or mechanisms; however, this book will not be helpful or useful for people who already have knowledge on digital technology, but want to know more in depth information. Providing very little implementations is another weakness of the book. It gives little implementation at the very last chapter of the book which is also not very helpful.

Overall, this book is perfect when looking for definations and implementing the technology with daily life, but not for gathering new ideas. People will find this book comes handy when looking for an easy defination for term what we hear everyday, but do not exactly know what it means.

Digital Convergence by Andy Covell provides a great introduction into the world of the ever crossing over of technologies as stated in the title of the book by stating brief histories of different forms of technologies, how the digitization of these technologies allows work to increase in productivity and speed, and lays down the basics of networking and communication technologies. If you are looking for a book on the convergence of computer, networking, and multimedia technologies that is easy to read and full of bits of information then this may be the next read for you.

This book provides a good introduction into the digital world with a brief overview of how the computer on everyone's desk at work and in their home came to be from the mainframe to the PC. Then the author goes into the differences between analog ways of doing things and the digital way of doing things and the benefits of the digital age.

The book then provides some information on the basic components of the computer and some of the networking technologies used in today's LAN's and WAN's. Different forms of multimedia technologies are then introduced followed up by how all these technologies are meshed together and how one can implement them in a work environment.

All in all this book was a joy for me and it strengthens some of the topics covered in a certain book in a certain class that some of you may have taken if you are reading this (an inside thing for you tirmsters out there).

Technologies have existed throughout our history from physical tools such as hammer and wheel to intellectual skills such as know-how of organization management. With the advent and acceptance of new technologies, people have experienced the change of life pattern correspondingly. Since the late 1990s, a variety of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have also changed our lives. For example, mobile telephone made it easier to make and adjust appointments. Internet brings about both richness and overload of available information. Andy Covell tries to show the potential opportunity new digital technologies offer individuals through his book Digital Convergence.
Digital ICTs are different from conventional analog ICTs in that they represent any information as binary digits. This way of digitized representation improves our ability to transmit, edit, and compute information. Furthermore, it is relatively easier to integrate different kinds of digital technologies. This can be called digital convergence. According to the author, digital convergence refers to the merging of computing capabilities, multimedia technologies, and communication technologies. Currently, digital convergence is in progress.
As an expert of information technology, the author focuses on technological potential for influencing human life. Actually this book can be regarded as a kind of guidebook rather than one that describes and discusses the impact of digital convergence on human life. We can find somewhat familiar acronyms such as LAN, MPEG-1, AGP, PCMCIA, and MIDI. But we may not know exactly what they mean and how can they be used. This book is useful in that it provides easy explanation of each acronym, sometimes with stories of author himself.
But it may be misleading to discuss the impact of digital convergence from technology-centered perspective. Technological potential is not the outcome but a necessary condition. Digital convergence can transform our lives through the interaction with diverse political, economical, and cultural conditions. Nonetheless, this book is useful in that it helps understand the functionality and potential impact of diverse digital technologies.

Digital convergence provides a high level overview of the current digital technologies. This book describes conventional technologies, how digital implements differently, computing, digital communications technologies, multi media and convergence technologies. The final chapter in the book provides a very generic project template for how to select and implement your first convergence project.

The technology descriptions are very brief, and while they provide a decent overview, there is absolutely no depth. The basic buzzwords are covered but very little in terms of real world implementation experience or industry issues are covered.

The practical implementation details are left until the final chapter. However, it only provides a basic Systems Development LifeCycle methodology approach that could be used for any development effort. Mr. Covell makes very little attempt to describe how convergence projects differ from traditional implementations.

Overall, this book makes an ok primer but provides very little "hard" or practical information.