Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

digital convergence 147which allow winning auction bidders to send money fromtheir credit card or bank account to the seller, who wouldnot otherwise be equipped to accept credit cards. Truemicropayments would extend down to just a few cents.“True” digital cash, allowing for anonymous paymentsand micropayments, has been slow to catch on. However,the successful digital cash system is likely to have the followingcharacteristics:• Protects the anonymity of the purchaser (no creditcard information transmitted to the seller)• Verifiable by the seller, perhaps by using one-timeencryption keys• The purchaser can create digital cash freely fromcredit cards or bank accounts• micropayments can be aggregated at a very low transactioncostAs use of digital cash becomes more widespread, it is likelythat tax and law enforcement agencies will press for theinclusion of some way to penetrate the anonymity of transactionsfor audit or investigation purposes. They will beopposed by civil libertarians and privacy advocates. Onelikely compromise may be requiring that transaction informationor encryption keys be deposited in some sort ofescrow agency, subject to being divulged upon court order.Further ReadingKou, Weidong. Payment Technologies for E-Commerce. New York:Springer, 2003.Lamb, Gregory M. “ ‘Nickel and Diming’ across the Internet.”Christian Science Monitor, February 23, 2004, n.p. Availableonline. URL: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0223/p13s01-wmgn.html. Accessed July 8, 2007.Orr, Bill. “Cashless Society, Ahoy! Suddenly Micropayments AreHot Again.” ABA Banking Journal 98 (March 2006): ff.Rosenborg, Victoria. PayPal for Dummies. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley,2005.Warwick, David R. “Violent Crime and Cash: The Connection;Privacy Concerns About Digital Cash May Be Overblown.”The Futurist, May 1, 2007, p. 42.digital convergenceSince the late 20th century, many forms of communicationand information storage have been transformed from analogto digital representations (see analog and digital).For example, the phonograph record (an electromechanicalanalog format) gave way during the 1980s to a whollydigital format (see cd-rom). Video, too, is now increasinglybeing stored in digital form (DVD or laser disks) rather thanin the analog form of videotape. Voice telephony, whichoriginally involved the conversion of sound to analogouselectrical signals, is increasingly being digitized (as withmany cell phones) and transmitted in packet form over thecommunications network.The concept of digital convergence is an attempt toexplore the implications of so many formerly disparate analogmedia now being available in digital form. All forms ofdigital media have key features in common. First, they areDigital convergence results from the fact that many formerly analogmedia (such as sound, film, and video) are now being acquiredand processed digitally. Once in digital form, the content can beprocessed and played by a variety of software and used on manydifferent platforms ranging from desktop computers to electronicbooks (e-books) and portable MP3 music players. Content can alsobe linked and organized using hypertext or hypermedia techniques,as on the Web.essentially pure information (computer data). This meansthat regardless of whether the data originally representedstill images from a camera, video, or film, the sound of ahuman voice, music, or some other form of expression,that data can be stored, manipulated, and retrieved underthe control of computer algorithms. This makes it easierto create seamless multimedia presentations (see multimediaand hypertext and hypermedia). Services or productspreviously considered to be separate can be combined innew ways. For example, many radio stations now providetheir programming in the form of “streaming audio” thatcan be played by such utilities as RealPlayer or MicrosoftWindows Media Player (see streaming). Similarly, televisionnews services such as CNN can offer selected excerptsof their coverage in the form of streaming video files. Asmore users gain access to broadband Internet connections(such as cable or DSL), it is gradually becoming feasible todeliver TV programs and even full-length feature films indigital format. By the middle of the decade, media deliverybegan to proliferate on new platforms that representa further convergence of function. Many “smart phones”can play audio and video (see smartphone). In July 2007Apple’s iPhone entered the market, combining phone, mediaplayer, and Web browsing functions, and similar deviceswill no doubt follow (see also pda).Emerging IssuesThe merging of traditional media into a growing streamof digital content has created a number of difficult legaland social issues. Digital images or sounds from varioussources can easily be combined, filtered, edited, or otherwisealtered for a variety of purposes. As a result, the valueof photographs as evidence may be gradually compromised.