 | |
| |
TechnologyDaily Mobile
The Tech-Empowered World Of The Future
by Winter Casey
Globalization is fundamentally about universal access to information, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Tuesday during a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace lunch event.
It used to be that information was controlled by the elite but new technologies have changed the distribution of knowledge, Schmidt said.
The technology entrepreneur seemed to ask more questions than he answered as he gazed past his audience at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel into the future of the world and how emerging technologies, governments and businesses will address the changes to come.
That future is more entrepreneurial and more empowered, Schmidt said. Now when people travel they hear the rings of the 2 billion cellular phones currently in the world, he said. Some countries, such as Italy, have more mobile phones than they do people, he noted.
He envisions the day when more people will have big screens, high-definition television, advanced mobile phones, high-quality computer screens, single hard drives with all media, and combined technologies.
Schmidt highlighted what he termed the "classic battle of open versus closed" -- open tech standards and open platforms, and the ability to innovate on top of the platforms.
Part of Google's strategy with the YouTube video-sharing site it acquired last year is to give people more opportunities, he said. But with the power and popularity of YouTube comes the power to post embarrassing clips of politicians, among other news, he noted.
In the future, Schmidt added, governments will have to support open markets and the world will have to "define where freedom of speech begins and ends," as it currently differs country by country. Schmidt said his personal view is that it is "better to be more liberal on this issue."
Schmidt also posed questions such as whether people have gained more freedom than they can handle. What happens when 1 billion more people get on the Internet and learn about their governments and neighbors, Schmidt asked.
The entrepreneur said Google is working on simultaneous language translations online. "What happens if there are wars over the translation of the Koran?" he said. What happens when the 1 billion people take full advantage of the Internet and post the sum of the world online rather then the edited versions, he said.
When everyone joins the medium, will it be positive or negative, he asked. "What about the right to privacy. ... When everyone sees that people are different does it makes us less or more sensitive?"
Politicians will be shocked with the changes, and it will be much "more evident in countries outside the United States," he said. Schmidt also noted how end-user power is threatening to governments and businesses, and that in the future "true anonymity is going to be extremely rare and is very, very dangerous."
Within legal safeguards, identities must be accessible, Schmidt said. He noted that the real content danger comes from dictators who might call for the elimination of all pornography and then filter other things.
On the intellectual property front, Schmidt said he believes "the world is a better place where the largest amount of people can see the most amount of information and pay for it."
China Looks To Embrace Nanotech Potential
Nanotechnology has emerged as a major area for international competition, and China is eager to take advantage of the potential economic benefits of the science, experts said Tuesday at an event hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
"Worldwide, nanotechnology has emerged as a critical area for science and technology competition -- much like the race to be the first country to put a man on the moon," Evan Michelson, a research associate at the center's project on emerging nanotechnologies.
"China and the United States are both big players in the nanotech race. Each faces a number of significant competitive challenges and collaborative opportunities, including the need for internationally coordinated risk research strategies and effective oversight mechanisms. Both nations need to work together to help engender public confidence in the private and public sectors ability to handle possible nanotechnology risks and to increase the capacity of public institutions to deal" with long-term implications, he said.
Nanotechnology encompasses the manipulation of materials at the atomic and molecular levels. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has forecast that China will have spent more on research and development in 2006 than Japan, making it the world's second-highest R&D investor after the United States, according to the center. The group also said governments and corporations invested close to $10 billion in nanotechnology R&D in 2005.
The Chinese are "betting that their growing investment in nanoscience will help them capture a large share of what shortly will become a $3 trillion global market in nanotech manufactured goods, and that breakthroughs in nanotechnology research and commercialization will confer economic superpower status" in the science, Richard Appelbaum, a nanotech expert from the University of California at Santa Barbara, said at the event.
Denis Fred Simon, vice president of academic affairs at the State University of New York, noted that "China recently released plans to radically increase its research and development capabilities over the next 15 years.
"It will be a grand experiment to see if the country can become a global innovation center. Central to these prospects are a number of key frontier technologies -- including nanotechnology -- aimed at ensuring the country's long-term competitiveness as it faces various funding, management and organizational obstacles."
Last fall, The Wall Street Journal reported that China is rapidly catching the United States in nanotechnology. The Bush administration's fiscal 2008 budget calls for an increase in nanotech research investments.
Operators Agree On Safeguards To Protect Minors
European mobile operators have agreed on ways to safeguard children who use mobile phones. Under an agreement negotiated by the European Commission, mobile operators will attempt to develop self-regulatory codes on the issue by February 2008.
"The commission will monitor very closely the effective implementation of today's agreement," said Viviane Reding, the European Union commissioner for information society and media.
Operators also have agreed to support the classification of commercial content according to national standards of decency and appropriateness, awareness-raising campaigns for parents and children, and efforts to prevent illegal content on mobile phones.
Public authorities will need to monitor industry's self-regulation developments and assess whether public intervention is needed, according to a commission release.
On Tuesday, the European Union celebrated Safer Internet Day with a number of events scheduled to raise awareness of the issue.
NEW FEATURE
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
