The first tests of interactive TV provide mixed results and we don't expect much more enthusiastic responses from experiments based on more advanced multimedia front-ends, at least beyond the fraction of society which is already familiar with computers. Again, our conjecture is that a truly massive acceptance of interactive technologies can be achieved only via fully natural, intuitive and immersive VR interfaces based on a real world metaphor which everyone understands. A set-top will act as a renderer and an image generator. Let's look first at some applications. Video games will be important but not leading as many larger markets will open.
Home shopping is probably the leading application domain as truly everyone shops.
Our point is that, assuming universal access and massive global use of these technologies, the best strategy for identifying leading markets and estimating their computing needs is simply to look at what people primarily do in their lives and hence will most naturally buy as televirtuality services. Consider home shopping. Such domain-specific analysis is the subject of this project but is beyond the scope of the present discussion. This mall typically handles thousands of customers and hence needs a teraflop machine, whereas Sears of America, handling millions of customers might perhaps need a petaflop system. Less-trivial information processing will be clearly there too, but computationally speaking, it will often represent only a correction to this background mode required by the real word metaphor.