Telecommunications, telematics, telepresence as terms and discussion prompts Created by Brett Oppegaard for Washington State University's DTC 375 class, fall 2009

What is “telecommunications”? Any transmission, emission or reception of signs, signals, writings, images and sounds; or intelligence of any nature by wire, radio, visual or other electromagnetic systems. - International Telecommunication Union, 1932 Are smoke signals telecommunications? What about raising a flag on a ship? What about talking face to face? What about embedding mobile content in a GPS location?

What is “telematics”? Interconnection between computers and telecommunications. - Simon Nora and Alain Minc from “Computerization of Society” If you work together as a Google group, are you participating in telematics? If you call someone, telephone to telephone? If you send someone an ?

What is “telepresence”? A sense of presence (of feeling physically present) in a remote location, created through interaction with a system's interface. - Marvin Minsky, 1980 Is an audio-only conference call an example of telepresence? Was Kac's radio-controlled robot? Was Moholy-Nagy's “Telephone Pictures”? What about a call that gets answered only by voice mail?