The two major scenarios of the emerging information society is the telematique, based on television, and the privatique, based on telephony. In the former, a few huge sources beam information at millions of receivers; in the latter, we are all sources and receivers within a complex network of communicating nodes.

      One new information technology - videotex - is beginning to penetrate our homes. It is viewed as a combination of television and telephone technology. Some see it as an extension of television technology - as two-way television in which you can talk back to it by selecting what you want to see from a menu. Others see it as an extension of telephone technology - as a device for using your telephone to talk to computers with the television screen merely a handy monitor to allow the computer to talk back. The important element, however, is the computer, since it is the brain behind the screen, whereas the television set and telephone handset are merely peripheral devices for input and output, like eyes and ears and arms and legs. The important issue is whether the computer will making our home one of millions of destinations for information from a few television-like sources or a node in a telephone-like network in which we can be both source and destination.