More ways to go wireless in the future.

• Position: Communications - Brief Article

For years, teleconferencing, video, and e-mail have been advocated from the perspective of cost and efficiency. Following the events of Sept. 11, however, those business communications methods will be used for safety--as a way to avoid long-distance travel, predict Ronald Dulek, head of the management and marketing department, and Chad Hilton, director of international business programs, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

"Obviously, we are tremendously vulnerable in the arena of cyberterrorism," Dulek warns. "One has to wonder what would happen if someone designed a computer virus that could knock out our computer systems or any other parts of our technological infrastructure."

For that reason, he and Hilton say, expect a huge increase in antivirus software to protect computers from viruses and hackers. They also forecast an increase in digital imaging. "We will continue to find more and more ways to insert compressed video into our lives," Hilton notes. "Rather than having a navigation map displayed in our cars, what if we get a screen in which a voice tells us exactly where to go and what to do?"

From a "language perspective," they expect two seemingly...