Below is a transcript of the audio file.

Jonar Nader: Another bizarre story I must tell you is this lady in the US who is going to sue Apple. Can you believe it?

Host: Yes, I was going to ask you about that. Why is that? Because of an RSI injury?

Jonar Nader: Now, normally people sue their employers and say “look I am having trouble” now this lady said to her employer “look I am getting RSI I need to slow down” so the employer said “okay, stop working on this machine” she then went to the employer and the employer gave her special privileges and the employer sacked her. So she instead of suing the employer she went and sued Apple and IBM and said you guys designed very bad keyboard, and she originally only wanted to sue them for $50 000 and she thought it would pass very quickly, little did she know that such a precedent would never be tolerated by Apple and IBM and the whole thing escalated to her suing for $1 000 000 and the whole court case went on for weeks.

Host: Eight weeks.

Jonar Nader: Exactly, but finally the whole thing was thrown out.

Host: So it was thrown out and she didn’t get anywhere with it?

Jonar Nader: Oh, well, she did make a bit of money because Apple lawyers made a mistake and settled outside of court, just before the jury dismissed it, so she did make a bit of undisclosed money and they wouldn’t tell anyone. Which reminds me, wouldn’t it be fun to hold a competition on radio to ask people what a great thing would be to sue on, for example, the steering wheel, I wonder if we can sue Ford or somebody, God bless them, for designing badly designed steering wheels, imagine the precedent for that.

Host: Should it give you a sore wrist. So what did she get in the end?

Jonar Nader: Just a few thousand dollars.

Host: Oh is that all, to cover court costs. I have been speaking to Jonar Nader who is the president of the Australian Information Technology Society and also author of Prentice Hall’s Illustrated Dictionary of Computing. Thanks Jonar.

Below is a transcript of the audio file.

Host: Jonar you have just come back from a week long tour of Malaysia’s technology offerings. What did you notice about Malaysia? What were you doing there?

Jonar Nader: Just a business trip. The beginning of the year chin wag. What the tax department like to call a junk it, no not really, it was lots of hard work and I have only just recovered, and apart from the heat, gosh it was hot, and I tell you the conference rooms were so cold that people were literally shivering and so you go in and out of this fridge and then out into the heat. Flying in to Malaysia, I noticed the wonderful architecture there it was the most wonderful place to see all these buildings. Some of the nicest buildings in the world there, I think Singapore has some nice buildings there too.

Host: Malaysia has got the worlds tallest building doesn’t it?

Jonar Nader: Yes, it is called the Kuala Lumpa City Centre, KLCC. They are a twin tower, 80 stories, and I bumped into them on accident, I was walking past and I thought wow, it looks like a chandelier by night, it is like the worlds biggest chandelier. It is on a 100 acre site, it is a convention hall, a concert hall, there are hotels etc.

Host: Shopping?

Jonar Nader: Of course. And it has these double decker lifts to accommodate people, it has about 29 lifts, and it says on the brochure ‘this lift can take you from the bottom to the top floor in super fast two and a half minutes.’ But imagine if you had to do a full stop run. It would take another ten minutes.

Host: I hate that. Did you notice anything in terms of the Malaysian economy, now that we hear that the Asian economy is not healthy?

Jonar Nader: Well, as you know, in times like this there are wonderful opportunities. The poor people who are suffering do suffer a lot. I heard one business man say to another “hey, listen, you owe me $200 000″ and the other said “look, I just can’t pay you. So come into my office and take whatever you like and whatever is left over we will do a contra.” Because that is just the sad way it is. But if you are into property and you want to buy things, now is the time to buy it, because you have hundreds of developments that have become dormant because they have gone broke. It is a sad affair, but that is where the bargain hunters go and get the best buys.

Host: Last year Malaysia announced the multimedia super corridor. What was that about?

Jonar Nader: Well, Malaysia was trying to say, “how can we differentiate ourselves in the region, what can we do to become known for as far as this new technology is concerned” and the multimedia corridor was how do we develop a knowledge society, how do we develop an infrastructure, that can allow large corporations to develop products and software, multimedia etc? Well the government said, “let’s develop tax barriers and tax breaks and let’s alter the law, let’s make a commitment that we will not have censorship on the internet there, otherwise we will drive multinationals away, let’s offer certain protection on copyright, and let’s offer new laws on intellectual property and let’s go into partnership with some companies where we pay 51% of the development costs, so long as they give us back some of the royalties from export, and there are zero tariffs on exports and so on.”

Host: Are there any signs of it actually working?

Jonar Nader: Well, last year was it’s first year, it was still in the selling phase, they were just selling the concept and about 100 companies bought in on the idea and they are developing and some very major companies are on the advisory panel, I think Nec, Fujitsu, Motorola, Acer and others. This year is now the first year where they want to see the action, and the infrastructure is mostly developed, and would you believe the place that the urban development is actually taking place is a place like the silicone valley which is called Cyber Jaya. Unbelievable isn’t it?

Host: I don’t see Malaysia as being a place to have this super corridor, do people gravitate to being in Malaysia. I guess being a multimedia, it doesn’t really matter where the corridor is?

Jonar Nader: Well, India is very well known for software development, and Microsoft has just signed a deal where India is the first ever development site outside North American, and a few other countries around the area have been attracting. Because, for example, in India, if you want a PhD in computer science you can obtain or hire one at a third of the price of what you would have to pay for that same intellectual capacity in North America so if PhD’s in America are asking for $100 000, you can get one for $30 000 a year in India. So therefore, labour is cheaper and there are more people. For Malaysia’s super corridor to work, they need 30 000 knowledge workers, and these knowledge workers have to be versed in multimedia and what is called programming and programming languages. So it ought to be really a long term thing. And the fact that they are putting pressure on this and are expecting year two to be developing results, is really tough, because in two years to develop a full infrastructure is very hard. Why would you pick Malaysia? Well, only again, it is not quite the centre but it is quite near to everywhere else the government is less rigid then most countries over there, the people speak mostly English over there.

Host: What is this smart school’s program? Has that got anything to do with it?

Jonar Nader: Well, they are saying if we want 30 000 knowledge workers where do we start? Well they are saying let’s start with the schools, and there is a tender out at the moment, where the government is saying let’s pilot 91 high schools and let’s see if the young people are connected firstly to the web, that they have computer and internet access and teachers know how to teach the subject. And they are going through what we are going through here in Australia, how and when do you start teaching this? But of course I am of the opinion that you don’t just go out and start teaching computing, you have to get computer people interested in it. I mean we teach mathematics every day of the year, and we don’t end up with mathematics professors running the loot it is not so simple, but at least they are trying and have a vision.

Below is a transcript of the audio file.

Jonar Nader: The lawyers themselves have kept us on the run for a long time. And they have got a reputation over the years of charging us for what? At the end of the day it is just information. We have often discussed the topic of the impact of law on technology and on society and now in some ways, we as technologists are saying it is now about time we discuss the impact of technology on law because the show is on the other foot. How it affects their business for example we had a speaker here today, Professor Richard Suffcons who came via satellite from I think from the UK and he was scaring them to death, he said ” you people might very well be disintermediated because what value do you add when you do what you do?”

Host: People might be disinter-whatted?

Jonar Nader: Disintermediated is the intermediary or the middle person or agent who in this case is a lawyer. A travel agent is a middle person; they sell you a ticket from an airline. What does a lawyer do? They give you information that they decipher from the torts or the statutes and so he is saying, if all you sell is information, why can’t we go elsewhere for it? What makes you think I have to go to you? I could go to the internet, to other countries, to people who aren’t even lawyers just people who know how to decipher the law, and that was scaring them somewhat and Sir Ivan Richardson, who is the president of the Australian Court of Appeal was here this morning addressing everyone and he said that the costs and accessibility are far too high and is calling for a review on that. Certain prominent speakers are certainly shaking the attendees in their boots.

Host: Are the lawyers themselves open minded enough to take advice from technology people?

Jonar Nader: I think that in the past they haven’t been and now I think that everything is coming through fear, because remember fear has been a fantastic seller in our history, and so they have the fear put into them and are now listening and asking questions all be it they don’t like the tablet that they have to swallow for example there was the communications minister speaking about frogs being produced in labs without heads and how the papers have already put down to produce humans without heads and what ethical questions that will raise if you can have a factory with bodies, non deplumes who can donate their kidneys, etc. And when you talk about what technology can do, the speed transaction, the globalisation, the cross boarder trading, theft and crime then if you are not up on this, how can you practice law if you do not know what it going to happen and the minister of communication said “you may think that things may have been going quickly for us, you may think that technology has been travelling quickly, but I will show you the graph. In my opinion, it is going to shoot up just like a vertical and your children will be in a whole new world.”

Host: So a bit of a wake up call for the lawyers.

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Host: Virtual reality. It is the world of almost. Is that how we could describe it?

Jonar Nader: Things being almost but not quite. Yet their effect could be very real. So that you may be practicing or training or learning how to drive a car. I think that would be a wonderful thing in the future. I was driving home just the other night and I saw the most horrific accident. A car was actually on top of another car in a ‘T’ formation. Physically on top of it. Now I thought that through virtual reality, if we could teach young drivers what it really means to skid on ice, or what a spot of rain could do to a road or how breaking at a certain speed effects stopping distance. You see when you go to learn, you learn about all the safe things, like how to park, how to accelerate, you know, how to be safe. But to really handle a car, you need to be aware of its tolerances. So through virtual reality, as pilots do when they perform flight simulation. By the way, some flight simulation pilots have fainted when they have crashed their plane. I mean, that is how real it is. And we spoke about their 280 nano second delay causing them to vomit on the spot as well. So it is a very real thing that I think would be wonderful. So the first company that can give you full virtual reality car tuition and lessons, all be it at $100 a minute or something could still do a pretty good job.

Below is a transcript of the audio file.

Jonar Nader: What is the function of technology? For me the whole function of technology is to create an advantage. You actually must have something created. Now an advantage is now in business. We call it the competitive advantage. But often, business people stop thinking beyond that revelation. They say okay well now I have a computer at the ABC and therefore now I am competing with every other station. Well, no, because beyond creating the advantage there is a thing called law of annihilation, you hire and MBA, I’ll hire and MBA. You buy a gizmo computer, I’ll buy a gizmo computer. So the window of opportunity is what we have to focus on. So when you bring a technology into a company you only have a small window of opportunity if you expect it to be an advantage. Most businesses cannot create that advantage so therefore they use computers to reduce costs. So we ask, are we implementing a computer to reduce a cost?

Host: Is it actually reducing costs?

Jonar Nader: Well, if it is engineered properly the answer is yes, and many companies do. But most companies don’t, because they somehow forget the training factor. It is a bit like when parents buy a computer and don’t buy a modem or they buy a computer and don’t buy software. Remember the good old days when software didn’t necessarily come automatically. They would just buy the computer and then say to the kid, ‘go on then, get an ‘A’ mark’. Like as if that was it. Now I often say that the technology itself for it to create an advantage has to be absolutely exclusive, powerful and definite. And I ask you to pause for a moment and think, which technology in this world today is exclusive, powerful and definite? And I can’t think of one beyond the atomic bomb. So therefore everything else has a process of annihilation and it is up to managers to work within the window of opportunity which in this industry slams very quickly.

Host: Wow. You have said enough to sit back on my heels and start thinking. Now lets listen to some music and I want to come back to another aspect of this conversation. Now Vervaldi is your next choice, does this just fall into that style of music or is there a specific reason?

Jonar Nader: Well partly because we are playing obo concerto in C, adargio. I studied the obo when I was a kid and when I actually realised I was breaking the reed all too frequently, it was $10 a pop and I couldn’t afford that all too often. And I also realised that anyone who plays the obo apparently dies early because it has such a strain on the brain, so I gave that up and took up the violin.

Below is a transcript of the audio file.

Host: Even though someone says to you that they are 35 years old and they are single, interested in chess and going to the movies, they might no be. This question of changing one’s ID on the internet. It might be an interesting case, particularly this one where a 31 year old was found guilty. What was this story?

Jonar Nader: Okay, well as far as changing your ID it is nothing mysterious, in the sense that I could write you a letter and sign it Jane Smith 55 years of West Perth, who is to know and how do you verify? Similarly, when chatting over the phone, well the voice gives it away, so I couldn’t say I am Jane Smith anymore, but I could lie about my age and profession. On the internet, there are things called chat lines, where it is more really through the keyboard, where you sit and type and they see the message instantly at the other end and you can send each other letters etc. What’s happening a lot is that people are lying about who they are, they can even send you a photo through the internet, but the photo is usually scanned from another person’s photo or a magazine or a library, and in this particular case, a 31 year old doctoral candidate, he was the chap studying Molecular Biology, so he seemed to have all sorts of good credentials, as far as his stability of mind was concerned. He met a lady over the internet, chat for a while, invited her over and the moment she got there she was tied up for 20 hours, he bit her, he hit her, he abused her and then after she was released, she went to the police. He was out on $350,000 bail he was released from jail, on 6th May we will hear a sentencing, he has been now put back into jail at the moment. He could receive 25 years jail. His defence lawyer for this man has said “it is an insult to your intelligence to say that she didn’t know what was going to go on when she got there” and that inflamed the judge, saying “Surely a woman who goes over to a man’s house is not asking to be sexually abused.” So, possibly maximum of 25 years term, however, the message is be very careful about who you meet, where you meet and exchanging information. I had a friend the other day who was on the phone to me and said “oh look I have got to go, the police is here, I was being stalked, I don’t know how they got my phone number” so be very careful in every way.

Host: Yes, don’t believe what you read. Particularly on those chat lines, they seen to attract the odd strange person or two.

Below is a transcript of the audio file.

Host: I have to ask you this right off the top. Mobile phone users whose phone rings in the middle of meetings or restaurants or theatres and such things could soon be dealt with?

Jonar Nader: Yes, with a jamming device. Now this requires a special licence and is not yet available in Australia, but it is being tested in Tokyo, where almost everybody has a mobile phone, and there is the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, so they’re currently saying that theatres and concert halls and such like are able to submit to buy licence to buy a jamming device. Jamming devices already exist in special buildings and special places, soon they will be having them on aeroplanes and such like because they interfere with equipment and are also a nuisance. There is also the opposite of this called a booster, as with the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. The authorities found that people were speeding through tunnels and road ways what had bad reception so they thought to make reception better otherwise the people will be speeding. So we have boosters and blockers.

Host: It sounds terrific that restaurants can now advertise “and we now have a mobile phone blocker so you won’t be bothered.” It is great.

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Below is a transcript of the audio file.

Excerpt 1

Host: Can a piano of violin be replaced by a computer? We thought we would toss that around tonight, firstly, with our Sunday night regular, the General Manager of Technology for the Australian Technology Society, Mr. Jonar Nader, how are you?

Jonar Nader: G’day Kevin, late breaking news, you know there is not only diversity in music, but there is also diversity in corporations, and I’m happy to announce that Xerox and Whirlitzer have decided to merge and they will be specializing in reproductive organs.

Host: And to add to our understanding of music and technology tonight, Charlie Chan is the Australian born with Malaysian, Chinese and Scottish heritage Charlie is renowned as a musician at the forefront of music’s use of technology, and a master of six instruments.

Excerpt 2

Jonar Nader: You know, unfortunately, this is where people in art people said “we will never replace the airbrush artist” or “we will never replace the typographer or the wordsmith”, but unfortunately if you look at the demographics and the numbers of them, they certainly have diminished quite a bit, but the good thing about this kind of music and what is it doing to the pub crawl all over again, is that people and pub owners are able to employ a two piece or three piece with technology and it is able to give a full sound, not that I’m a pub guy, but I am told that there is a whole new resurgence in that.

Charlie Chan: I used to do that once you know, I used to sit there and do that. Because you can do so much with one piece of technology and they often only wanted to employ one person, which is really sad for musicians.

Jonar Nader: Well the professional musicians, Charlie you come from a classical background, is that right? You were actually trained rather professionally as a musician.

Charlie Chan: Yes, in a kind of messed up kind of way, look I started up on guitar which I don’t play at all anymore. I went to a school where you learned piano and I learnt piano and ironically the double base which I don’t play at all either anymore, but it gave me a sort of firm grounding.

Host: Now the question is, does it come in a range of colours and is it safe for the children?

Charlie Chan: It doesn’t make coffee I am sorry Kevin, but I wish it did.

Host: What about cost for people interested in this kind of music? Jonar, any idea about the cost to establish yourself, just for the basics?

Jonar Nader: Yes, of course, you must start with talent, and nothing can replace that but if you are able to afford $5 000 or even up to $12 000 you are able to set yourself up with some pretty good gig happening. And you find yourself with Tommy Emanual, and I mean really he is a one man show, and he can really put everything together, all he needs is a bit of lighting and a bit of marketing behind him, but there are now great debates about what point is a piano a piano, there is a lot of cries of blasphemy, you know people saying “you will never be able to replace a piano.”

Excerpt 3

Jonar Nader: But there are now great debates about what point is a piano a piano, there is a lot of cries of blasphemy, you know people saying “you will never be able to replace a piano.” There are some pianos now that are electronic that are over $100 000 and each key, in fact, how you hit it and how you turn your hand and even the slightest touch and how you move your hand and how you swivel your hand gives you totally different sounds and they are trying very hard. But I quizzed Charlie before and I asked “will they ever be able to replace the piano?” and she said “no” and now we are having this fight, and the conservatorium of music do love the electronic piano, guess why, because they can give each student a head set and he can play his own thing and that’s the great thing about electronic pianos.

Charlie Chan: That is a great idea. I mean it is very hard for most people to listen to music, if you put a CD on and you listen to it, you don’t know, how will you know what is one it, and although it might say, in the case of a CD of mine, you know how will you know if I am playing real piano or keyboard piano, and a whole range of other instruments and you have no real perception of where those sounds come from, the important thing for you as a listener is well am I effected by it, do I like it, and if I like it then all the other things become irrelevant in a funny kind of way.

Jonar Nader: Yes, as we have always touched on, the area of law has always impacted on technology and now we are finding that the copyright experts are bouncing on people who touch keyboards and merge in sounds, and you can morph a sound, I mean you can start off with a lovely Tommy Emanual beat and morph it into something you can’t recognize, and at what point have you plagiarized? And these are the problems we are going to have to overcome. And finally from me Kevin, with respect to the panel, I would say that with technology is that if you actually have to speak about it then it hasn’t happened, and if you actually have to sit here with three people, our dignitaries, and argue about whether we have multicultural music or not then we actually don’t have it. Similarly, with television, you never say colour television anymore, because we have overcome the colour hurdle. And you don’t say stereo sound; it is now just natural that you get stereo with even the tiniest teapot that you get. And now we are finding in the cinema that you get this two minute intro about stereo sound and now it is digital sound, and soon we are going to go into 3D sound. It is wonderful stuff that in technology that if you have to talk about it then it hasn’t happened. And I might say that it hasn’t happened with multicultural music.

Charlie Chan: Excellent, excellent.

Host: Ladies and Gentlemen please thank our two guests tonight, Miss Charlie Chan and Mr. Jonar Nader

Below is a transcript of the audio file.

Host: Now, we are looking at the information technology hall of fame over the next few weeks. Today, who have we got?

Jonar Nader: Well I thought Steven Jobs. He is a lovely old chap of the industry. Steven was around 21 when he started Apple Computer and he started it in his backyard with a friend of his called Steven Wozniak, way back in 1976. Now, he was an employee of Atari and Wozniak was from Hewlett Packard. They got together and realised that they could make a fancy little computer, which at the time cost them $1 500 and had to sell a few of their personal effects to create it. They finally bumped into a chap called Mike McKoola who is a multi-millionaire by now I am sure. Now Mike put together $90,000 to launch Apple. Now the saddest story about Wozniak was that he went around looking for a genius to help him, he realised that the Chief of Pepsi Co. John Scully would know how to sell computers and Steven Jobs wanted everybody to have a computer and the best person to do so is the person who made Pepsi what it was. So John Scully after two years of courting agreed to go along and was given what was at the time the world’s biggest salary and all sorts of executive package. But the sad story there after is that once John Scully joined the board of Apple, he finally sacked the man who employed him, so John Scully turned around one day and convinced the Board to sack Steven Jobs who have to go out and start up his own company called Next. Jobs is a young fellow, he was born in 1955.

Host: So he is quite happy. The word Apple, where do they get that from? From the record?

Jonar Nader: No actually, he and Wozniak were driving down the street one day in California and I think there were many trees, not that there were apple trees and the chap thought they should call it Apple because the tree inspired him and they looked at each other and thought why not. Which I thought was a very brave move. It is like you and I looking at each other and saying lets call the company onion or banana or something, but then the apricot company came on board a while after so fruit became the next big thing.

Host: Alright Jonar thanks for that, and we will talk to you next Monday.

Jonar Nader: Thanks

Host: Jonar Nader looking inside the world of information technologies.