by Howard Greenstein
March 26, 2008 at 2:37 am · Filed under
Infrastructure and Communications, Society and Culture, Supernova08
I had been taking it for granted that programs to get computers to the developing world, such as One Laptop Per Child, were a great thing. And, certainly they are. I’ve also been taking for granted that people who want to learn about what I’m writing could read this blog, or my personal one. However, there are millions of people in the world that are illiterate, or visually impaired, but could benefit from more and easier access to information.
This morning at a panel at the “UN meets Web 2.0” event, I’m learning more about the challenges of connecting people all over the world. More blog posts on that to follow, I hope, but this morning I wanted to call out one item I heard from Mr. Emdad Khan, CEO, of InternetSpeech.com. I heard him discuss “Net Echo,” a system that allows browsing of the net, accessing email and even getting news via a voice interface over the phone.
Mr. Kahn said “Information is “money”, and the largest source of information is Internet, but a lack of computer or computer skills can be a barrier to people obtaining the information they need.” He says that PDAs an computers can’t bridge the digital divide in some cases, because those devices don’t reach the very bottom of the pyramid. Here’s a statistic - only 15% of global phone users have Internet access, and there are 500MM computers vs 3 billion phones.
Net Echo, which I only saw as a demo, allows audio-based browsing of major portals such as Yahoo and MSN, reading (and dictation of) email, and news alerts, all via a voice interface.
In addition to the developing world, the elderly, the visually impaired, and others could benefit from this system. I’m even thinking that this might be a way to get information when you’re on the go (though not when driving, that could be really dangerous!)
I’m looking forward to learning more about this system, and where in the world it’s being used to help distribute information via voice when text and words aren’t enough.
by chrisbrogan
March 21, 2008 at 10:40 am · Filed under
Infrastructure and Communications, Supernova08
Computing networks and social networks alike need a new casualness factor, and I’m calling for it now. In the case of computing, I want mesh networks like what comes built into the OLPC platform to propagate. I want network security to shift to zone and application in most areas such that we can have simpler collaboration. We have tools to protect us. We have protocols and security to keep the most critical parts of business networks secure. Free up the REST of the network for simpler connectivity and open us all up for the way work gets done these days. (One word: porous).
Social networks? Break open, loosen up. I want 2 profiles max for the rest of my life: business buttoned up and casual. (Okay, for me they’re the same, but that’s just to prove a point). But I don’t WANT to add a headshot, tell you how old I am, tell you which movies are my favorite, and then dump my gmail inbox into yet another server to see who else followed the lemmings to sign up (do my 4600 gmail contacts make me look fat? Lots of social networks buckle when I try to import them).
In the next bunch of months, I want a disassociated profile, a portable friends array, aggregation of lifestreams akin to FriendFeed but faster, and I want to have second-stage promotion of quality content (aka filtering) such that if seven of my friends say this article by Marshall Kirkpatrick is the BEST, then I want THAT to rise to the top of my RSS pile, instead of staying nestled into the rest of the blog posts.
Is any of this not do-able? I don’t think so. Supernova would be a great place to throw down and discuss all this. Don’t you agree?
by Howard Greenstein
March 21, 2008 at 2:55 am · Filed under
Infrastructure and Communications, Society and Culture, Supernova08
Greetings, I’m Howard Greenstein, and I’m glad to be back here posting on the Conversation Hub, as I did last year before Supernova. I’m a social media and social network consultant, and have been in the internet and online world from the late 80s. Today’s post from me is a literal response to the theme of Supernova being “Challenges to the Network Age.”
I was recently thinking that in the 20 years I’ve been in business I’ve been hearing promises made about technologies that are just around the corner to connect everyone with everything. With Wi-Fi in every laptop, cell phones on almost every hip, and the promise of smarter smart phones and everywhere-you-need-it network access in every cell phone commercial, I was starting to believe the hype about connectedness. It’s going to be a Jetson’s type world, very soon!
Then reality hit me in the face. Today I’m working in a “business center” that blocks access to my outgoing mail server, instant messaging, and Voice over IP. They also block virtual private networking software that would allow me to get around their restrictions. (I used to have a phone that allowed me to use it as a modem to get around this kind of stuff, but since I went iPhone Apple and AT+T let you do that.) Also, the business center didn’t have an AT+T cell signal. No VOIP on my computer. No Cell Phone. So I’m in a business center where I…can’t do business.
This is not a rant about how I can’t get online. I hope you’ll see that, even for me, a “road warrior” who is “always connected” and “constantly on the network” it isn’t even close to easy some days to do what you want to do.
The current networking promises on the horizon include 700Mhz Cell networks where we can bring our own devices, WiMAX networks in our cities to replace or supplement wired broadband, and even more.
Some of the things I’m hoping to learn at Supernova are
- What’s working for others to help them do business in the networked world?
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- How close are we to some of these promised innovations? and
- What’s not on my radar yet that I can wonder about for the next few years?
Like, for example, “where’s my flying car?”
