Manoj Seksaria : We dont lack in technology
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In a shallow, star-struck industry, rarely do you come across people who have their head firmly planted on their shoulders.
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Or are the techies the smartest of us all? Also in this week's column:â¦
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By Krell, Eric  IN THE BUSINESS WORLD, TECHNOLOGY MATTERS-EVEN IF SOME HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL THOUGHT LEADERS MIGHT SAY, OR WRITE, OTHERWISE.
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The use of mobile phones in emerging markets is growing but people are using their phones for more than just talking.
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(InfoWorld) - What struck Microsoft executive Marshall Phelps at a recent series of conferences in developing nations was that government, business and academic leaders often asked him, "How can we invent the next Google?" It's not that he took it as a slight that they said "Google" and not "MSN." What struck him was the view that a single big idea could transform a country overnight. "Not everything has to be the next big breakthrough," said Phelps, the company's corporate vice president for intellectual property, during an interview last week. The key to building a prosperous economy is to create an environment that supports innovation, he said. Innovation can take place at a piecemeal pace and does not have to happen in one fell swoop -- and usually, it doesn't. Phelps had just finished a series of conferences on innovation cosponsored by Microsoft in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The idea was to bring together national leaders and help them figure out how to encourage innovations that play to the strengths of their countries, and how to create an environment to ensure that innovation continues. For example, Phelps said, in Indonesia many people are artistic, and the country has started to focus this talent on visual multimedia software. A drawback for the country is that around 65 percent of college graduates go abroad to find jobs. In Thailand, government agencies tend to be aggressive and forward thinking, and that can help strengthen a number of industries. Medical tourism is booming there, and Thailand is growing into an automobile titan in Asia. Innovation can occur in any of these industries -- especially with software, Phelps said. The idea of drawing on local strengths can be applied to the U.S. too, said Bob Hayward, a managing consultant in Thailand with Strat-etech Consulting Co. Ltd. The U.S. software industry is a by-product of a business environment that relies heavily on new technology for efficiency. "You must work with what's in your environment," Hayward said. Malaysia is the most advanced of the three countries Phelps visited. It has high-tech parks and attracts investments from global technology companies, which in turn support innovation locally by providing training and engineering jobs that increase the skills of the work force. Malaysia also has strengths in building data centers, and in "Islamic finance," a type of financing that does not charge interest for religious reasons. South Korea is one country in the region that has developed so far in recent decades that it is now a technology leader in some areas. It's years ahead of other countries in certain types of Internet applications because of its early focus on broadband. Its online gamers are famous, and a host of multiplayer games developed there, such as "Guild Wars" and "The Legend of Mir 2," have won acclaim outside Korea. Many poor nations are still struggling to adjust their economies to the modern world, and they are often wary of solutions proffered by rich nations and multinationals. The innovation conferences give Microsoft a chance to meet local officials and try to win their trust. It gets other benefits too, such as boosting its image and giving it a chance to discuss issues that are important to the company, like intellectual-property enforcement. The countries where the conferences were held certainly face hurdles to innovation. They are still largely agricultural, and are moving into heavier industries, where less money is traditionally spent on research and development. Intellectual-property rights are not strongly enforced, meaning inventors see their products copied in the local market, making it hard for them to expand in their country, much less internationally. Such countries may have intellectual-property laws on their books, often enacted to meet the criteria of trade deals, but enforcement of those laws moves slowly. "Once R&D is near or approaching 1 percent of a country's gross national product, then their enforcement of IP gets very serious," Hayward said. Another hurdle is the lack of a "culture of failure" in Asia, Phelps said. Government and business leaders need to be realistic that some companies and some products will fail. Governments often provide resources to keep companies afloat artificially because, they fear, if they fail it will reflect badly on their development policies. There is also a debate in many countries over which economic model to follow, and how to create a modern nation without losing cultural identity. While these are sensitive issues, several countries, such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, have found ways to develop while maintaining their cultural roots. The best economic model is "not a mystery," according to Hayward. "We kind of know what works and what doesn't." For him, capitalism, for all of its faults, is the best economic system available. The next step for Microsoft is to arrange more meetings and create better coordination between government officials and local Microsoft offices, Phelps said.
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Plus: Putting a face on technology could improve our interaction with hi-tech gadgets.
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The business consultant and author argues that we should be embracing the speed of today's hyperconnected world, rather than shying away from it
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Forget about cumbersome, multifunctional PDAs. The future is an open book. By Bruce Sterling from Wired magazine.
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Computers are some of the most sophisticated and powerful tools available today -- yet these marvels of modern life are no more than looms on steroids, according to James Essinger's fascinating new book
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BBC News speaks to Jan Chipchase, principal human behavioural researcher at Nokia Design.
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One nanotechnology researcher said supercomputers small enough to fit into the palm of your hand are only 10 or 15 years away."If things continue to go the way they have been in the past few decades, then it's 10 years," said Michael Zaiser, a professor and researcher at the University of Edinburgh School of Engineering and Electronics. "The human brain is very good at working on microprocessor problems, so I think we are close -- 10 years, maybe 15."Zaiser's research into nanowires should help move that timeline along.For the last five years, he has been studying how tiny wires -- 1,000 times thinner than a human hair -- behave when manipulated. He explained that each such miniscule wire tends to behave differently when put under the same amount of pressure. Therefore, it has been impossible to line them up close to each other in tiny microprocessors in a production atmosphere.Zaiser said he's now figured out how to make the wires behave uniformly. He separates the interior material of the wire into distinct groups so the wire can't react as a whole. That makes it much easier to control. "It's like crowd control," he added. "If they can all go one way, you have a big mess."These nanowires will go inside microprocessors that could, in turn, go inside PCs, laptops, cell phones, or even supercomputers. And the smaller the wires, the smaller the chip can be.Shrinking down the microprocessors is a big step toward shrinking down computers.Zaiser was quick to point out that his nanowire discovery won't immediately lead to the development of supercomputers that can fit in the palm of a hand or even shrink down to the size of a book of matches. In addition to smaller microprocessors, engineers will need to deal with thermal fluctuations that erupt at that size.But he does humbly admit that taming nanowires is a big step toward the goal of small supercomputers."This will enable chips to become much smaller," he said. "Think 10 years back. You could hold [a cell phone] the size of a telephone receiver and it didn't work so well. Today, you can fit what is a powerful computer onto a small device."Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT in Hayward, Calif., said that with advances like nanowire technology continuing to come along, Zaiser's predictions for tiny supercomputers may not be so far off. And that will be a huge step for the industry, considering that not so long ago supercomputers filled up enormous rooms or even entire buildings."Actually, what he's saying is not crazy," said King. "The wire problem was an important one. Solving that particular issue, one so fundamental, needed to be done. If he can solve that, a lot of people, a lot of companies, will appreciate that. The industry is aligning in a direction where we're going to be seeing continuing improvements and developments."Jim McGregor, an analyst at In-Stat in Scottsdale, Ariz., said he definitely can see palm-size supercomputers coming out within 10 to 15 years, but he thinks they'll be based on the basic silicon technology used today. He added that the next generation of tiny supercomputers -- made with carbon nanotubes and nanowires -- may be as far off as another 30 to 40 years, though."You know, everybody says we'll get to a physical limit but every time we think we're going to hit it, we overcome it," said McGregor. "They end up being speed bumps instead of road blocks."King added that over the last 10 or 20 years, technology advancements have put smaller and more powerful computers into the hands of children and researchers alike. That leads him to believe that the shrinking of supercomputers is just ahead of us."We're at the beginning of some very exciting times in supercomputing," he said.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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All the opportunity of high-tech gadgets -- but none of the risk.
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Company executive admits its PC designs could use a little work, but loves the profits that cell phones generate.
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I was looking at what my friend Stephen Lewis wrote in HakPakSak a few days ago &#151; specifically newspapersâ roles as public trusts and cornerstones of our informational infrastructure &#151; i.e. sources of solid information and independent commentary essential to informed citizenry, democratic government, effective public policy, and well-functioning economies. What this brought up for me is the notion that human beings are themselves infrastructural;  especially when they are constuctive contributors to the structure we call civilization.
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A growing number of experts say cellphone use may be making us less autonomous and less capable of solving problems on our own.
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Sometimes the march of technology can lull us to sleep.
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The country has a sterling reputation as a hotbed of technological know-how, but that knowledge doesn't always run deep, particularly in law enforcement. Manu Joseph reports from Mumbai, India.