Spread knowledge and share

Did you ever dream of spreading the world's knowledge to every corner where connectivity is available? If people learn the basics of computers and web browsing, then they would be able to access to the largest 'library' ever. Actually, Google is trying since some time ago to scan all the books from important libraries around the world. An outstanding project.

And what about on-line education? If you ever took an online course or online studies, you can realize the strong and weak points of it. However, it should be a good option to work in this field to enhance the alphabetization of developing countries, don't you think so?

Apart from the well-known wikipedia, the Google guys are challenging this world with an outstanding inititative ("The Literacy Project") to fight against analphabetism and improve the inter-relation between the different organizations inside this movement. Another ‘bravo!’ for Google!

Innovation: wanted!

Which is the maximum ‘megabits per second’ speed? (When) are the advances going to stop, when is it enough? The continuous technology change and advances are going sometimes faster than what people can ‘absorb’. So what is the future here?

Usability is one of the key factors today. Make gadgets and technologies accessible to all the people, whatever group, culture or factor. Make things simple for some of these groups could be a successful idea. Personalization will be a good marketing tool.

And of course, last but not least, let’s mention the famous ‘killer application’ (see one idea from Cisco) that will star the next telecom future? Or is not worth looking for it like the ‘search for the lost treasure’, as it has become a mixture of different services or ideas?

Converge to win

One of the main movements within the telecommunications sector is the convergence . One of the examples is seen in the different functionalities included in one mobile terminal: music, video games, agenda, photo camera, etc. Don’t you prefer to have your gadgets 'all-in-one'?

Another example for this convergence is that of large operators, who are integrating the mobile subsidiaries into their structure. And which concept could we relate to that…? Triple-play, or better said, quadruple-play (named ‘grand slam’ as well). That is the combination in one unique offer of a bundle of services: phone calls, television, internet, and also mobile phone calls. Also we talked before about VoIP: having voice over packtes is another form of convergence to achieve to transmit everything through data networks (all-IP). What other examples of convergence can you think about?

Paradoxically, it has been recently alerted that the internet is experiencing a kind of ‘divergence’, based on the idea that different ‘nets’ could arise soon. For example, Asia is going to become one of the biggest markets, but their users will prefer to visit pages in their language rather than with Latin characters. This issue is as well related to the ‘net neutrality’ phenomenon that we wrote about in the last post, as the keeping the neutrality of the internet is a way of not diverging it. Do you dare to predict the future of the ‘global internet’?

Knocking down the 'digital divide' wall

One of the main challenges for today's global telecommunications is to 'bridge' the digital divide between different countries, cultural groups, etc. Sometimes we hear statistics about the penetration of information technologies such as internet, and gadgets such as the mobile telephones.

Tackling that is one initiative promoted by Intel, with its 'Intel World Ahead Program'. By facilitating the access of less favored people to personal computers, they want to create a technological infrastructure that can be later on capable of connecting people, where before there was perhaps just an old telephone cabin...

There are other private companies that put their efforts in recycling terminals and equipment. With the synergies and summoning ability of big high-tech multinationals and similar foundations altogether, the results could be really sensitive. A good organization and collaboration from host countries, as well as a strict non-corruption policy, should be essential ingredients for the formula. Do you think that big corporations could at least agree on such matters?