The city is interested in establishing a contract with a wireless provider such as Metricom, Acres said. Acres said that Pittsburgh has been on the vanguard of telecommunications advances since the first days of cable. Pittsburgh can be as wired as any city in the country. Dr. Michael Spring, a University of Pittsburgh professor at the School of Information Science, said the biggest difficulty in converting to wireless concerns the individual user. Wireless, as a concept, is 10 years old, Spring explained.
People have a somewhat legitimate fear of technology.
In order for computers to be good assistants, they will have to know a tremendous amount about us. The other barrier to wireless technology is the cost. While having access to records at work from home saves travel time and wear and tear on the car, many people view the monthly fees from a wireless company as a luxury item. If people kept a balance sheet of the amount of time and money computers could save them, they would appreciate the costs necessary to maintain them, he said. Nicholas Negopante, of the MIT Media Lab, suggested that information received by wire will be connected over the electromagnetic spectrum in the future.