Innovation In Wireless: The Disruption In Connectivity
from the data-everywhere dept
This post is part of an Intel-sponsored series of posts we'll be doing here at Techdirt on the topic of innovation. Posts in the series consist of a video interview of myself (which you'll see below), the post, and another video interview with an Intel representative and others. That second video, obviously, is content from Intel, but my video and what I've written here was done with complete and total editorial independence. We hope you enjoy the content and take part in the overall discussion, either via the comments or through the interactive ad unit to the right of the post.When most people think about wireless technologies today, they think about the fact that it makes it easier for them to connect their computers without having to plug in. Or that it lets data flow to their smartphones. But the overall impact can be seen as being much more profound. First up, here's a short video of me talking about the impact of wireless technologies:
But think about just how powerful it is in areas that were barely connected at all in the past. We've read stories about communities in developing nations where small players, who only used to have access to the nearest market, can suddenly reach out to others, and actually allow for competition for their products. That can be a massive change, in that it gets rid of a monopsony situation, allowing the poor in developing countries to get out of a never-ending cycle of poverty.
Similarly, wireless technology alone is enabling new careers and new types of businesses. There are the famous stories of women (and it's almost always women) in certain rural villages, who have built careers out of carrying around mobile phones that can be brought to different farmers, and used on a time-share-like system. This allows those farmers to have access to data and connectivity, but also has provided a way for those women to build up a career for themselves.
And think, then, about what begins to happen as the vast richness of data and information, that we now take for granted, reaches further and further into the far corners of the globe. The ability to do more, to build more and to connect more is going to reshape the lives of the many billions of underprivileged people of the world in ways that we can't even begin to fathom. The world just reached an astounding 7 billion people -- most of whom don't have access to many of the things we in the west take for granted -- including information. Wireless technologies have a chance to change that equation, and what comes out of it may be completely unexpected, but tremendously powerful. The idea that people who in the past may never have had an impact on the world may now be able to reach out and share their ideas and innovations with everyone is a revolution that is destined to bring powerful new ideas to the entire world.
Below you can see a video Intel put together, discussing how powerful wireless technologies can be.
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Filed Under: access, innovation, wireless
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"This video can't be played with your current setup. Please switch to a browser that provides native H.264 support or install Adobe Flash Player".
I'm using Firefox 8.0, on Win 7 Home Premium x64, with Adblock Plus and Noscript (Techdirt.com is whitelisted for both).
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another biased article
That only validates earlier accusations that you are a patent saboteur for large corps who repeatedly violate the patent rights of startups and small tech firms. So you've finally come out of the closet!
Masnick and his monkeys have an unreported conflict of interest-
https://www.insightcommunity.com/cases.php?n=10&pg=1
They sell blog filler and "insights" to major corporations including MS, HP, IBM etc. who just happen to be some of the world�s most frequent patent suit defendants. Obviously, he has failed to report his conflicts as any reputable reporter would. But then Masnick and his monkeys are not reporters. They are patent system saboteurs receiving funding from huge corporate infringers. They cannot be trusted and have no credibility. All they know about patents is they don�t have any.
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Re: another biased article
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