BOB GARFIELD: We're back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. We have seen viewers held captive by wall to wall coverage from the battlefields and military camps --viewers seemingly addicted to watching the live firefights and following troop movements. But what happens when the war in Iraq is over? Well there's always a war going on somewhere to broadcast if there's an outlet to carry it, and with state of the art equipment, a war channel could be just another number on your cable box, predicts technology guru Paul Saffo [sp?], head of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, California.

PAUL SAFFO: It's inevitable. It almost doesn't even feel like a forecast. There's a military channel, a weather channel, a pet channel with embedded journalists -- we have a whole new cadre of journalists who are used to traveling with the military and more importantly, militaries that realize the value of having journalists closeby. So you've got a population of journalists who love to cover this stuff and militaries who want to get their message out. Sounds like a recipe for a channel to me.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Okay, but who would watch it? If U.S. troops aren't involved will Americans, any of them, tune in?

PAUL SAFFO:Well you know who watches the Weather Channel? That's a mystery to me. But there are loyal devotees of the Weather Channel, and there are very loyal devotees of all things military.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well we already have the History Channel which might as well be called the war history channel.

PAUL SAFFO:I have not looked at the demographic, but just look at the sales of complex simulation video games or these very elaborate war simulation board games. There's been coverage in the press of people who've been glued to the television, watching this not because simply they're American citizens concerned about what's happening, but because they're absolutely fascinated by military strategy and doctrine. So I can even imagine members of the armed forces wanting to watch it.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:You're a technology guru-- what sort of technology do you foresee coming down the pike that could affect future war coverage and make it even more accessible?

PAUL SAFFO: Well that's really what's the most interesting part of this -- it is possible for people to carry everything they need on their persons in a way that it wasn't possible before. Video cameras have already gotten so small. Satellite phones from being 80 pound devices to just a little bit larger than would fit in a large pocket. They'll shrink further. Then there are some new innovations. This war UAVs -- unmanned aerial vehicles -- have played a pretty prominent role.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: What are UAVs?

PAUL SAFFO:Unmanned aerial vehicles. They're flying robots, in effect. They're the Predators that people talk about, and there are smaller UAVs. For example the military is using man-packable UAVs. This is a flying robotic glider that is small enough to be carried on the back of a soldier and they can assemble it at the last moment, launch it and fly it out over the next hill to see what's there. Well in the next war you're going to see UAVs with the logo of CNN and the news services on it.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: You've even predicted helmet cameras for the troops.

PAUL SAFFO:Sure! Well this stuff's here already. We're putting helmet cams on racers and basketball players. One can imagine some general in a lonely little war; doesn't feel like he's getting enough attention -- invites the journalists in; says I'll even put little cameras on my soldiers' helmets -- and away we go.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Can I ask you a broader, philosophical question? I mean in these days when reality TV doesn't much resemble reality, and, and looking back at a time when seeing a, a tiger kill an antelope or watching a baby born on television was really, really big stuff --what does it say for a, a culture, a world culture where you predict that watching people die could become merely good television and not much more than that?

PAUL SAFFO: Well, because I'm forecasting does not mean that I welcome it. I think one of the great dangers here is that with the pervasiveness of media, everything is becoming spectacle. For example, I would be very surprised if, once this arrived, there weren't generals conniving with their opponents on the other side to stage battles in order to get especially good footage or get better ratings in much the same way that some idiot producers out here in San Francisco some months ago hired street people to fight each other for money, because they wanted the videos. Technologies can be used to amplify our highest hopes and wishes, or they can also be used to amplify our most base instincts, and unfortunately this one, I fear, will play to the baser instincts.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Thank you very much.

PAUL SAFFO: My pleasure.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Paul Saffo heads The Institute for the Future, a non-profit research firm specializing in long-term forecasting.