CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES

As a leader, in educational technology, I think joining or giving donations to an existing nonprofits organization with connection to third-world countries is one of the best ways to help make emerging technologies valuable to other. Heimbuch (2008) article on closing the Global Digital Divide: Technology for Developing Countries, discusses already existing organizations and projects.

There are many groups and organizations hard at work at closing the global digital divide and providing developing countries with the technology that they do not have. Two groups I found interesting were Green Wi-Fi, a nonprofit that seeks to provide “last mile Internet access with nothing more than a single broadband Internet connection, rooftops and the sun. Another group is Geekcorps that sends people with technical skills to developing countries to assist in computer infrastructure development ((Heimbuch, 2008 p. 1).

Differences in technological access exist across cultures, gender, and socioeconomic groups, can be resolved through making sure that (1) when interfacing or working with groups like Wi-Fi and Geekcorps they have a well structure a program that includes man and female, (2) they focus on understanding the culture of the people they are reaching out to (3) not getting involved in the politics of these countries and (4) a policy within Green Wi-Fi and Geekcorps that gear their services to the socially disadvantages members of this society.

As an education technology person, I think I will do research on these organizations to see if they are groups that I would like to support. At present, the only real support I can render is donating funds to assist them in their endeavors.

References:

Heimbuch, J. (2008). Closing the global digital divide: Technology for developing countries, Science & Technology, San Fran, California. Retrieved February 20, 2011, from http://www.treehugger.com

Audio Podcast
Dr. Elliot Soloway “The Digital Divide: Leveling the Playing Field” (approx. 13 minutes)

Vodcast
Dr. Thornburg, “Diversity and Globalism” (approx. 6 minutes)

RED QUEENS AND INCREASING RETURNS

Dr. Thornburg discusses the competitive forces behind one of the six forces that drive emerging technologies, the red queen; who gets her name from "Through the Looking Glass", a story by Lewis Carol in which Alice is running as fast she can alongside the Red Queen. When Alice ask why they are not making any progress the Red Queen tell her that, in this world, you need to run as fast as you can to stay in the same place. Dr. Thornburg goes on to say, when a Red Queen comes about, it has an enormous impact, because of the competition between technologies. The consequence of a fierce battle between two technologies; each one trying to stay a step ahead of each other, results in the other technologies being left behind.

Dr. Thornburg also discusses increasing return and says that if you have a couple of innovations that hit the market at the same time, it is possible that one of them; just by chance, capture people imagination more than the others because they are competing. Dr. Thornburg concludes that the other one will become extinct. He furthermore says it is not always the best technology that wins. In an article by Arthur, "Increasing Returns and the New World of Business", (1996) he states that if a product that got ahead thereby got further ahead, how would markets work? He used the example of CP/M, DOS and Macintosh who were competing operating systems. Once DOS/IBM got ahead, even though it was not the best operating system, it locked in the market (p. 102).

When I decided to use Blade Runners for the science fiction assignment in Module 4, I had a friend burn a copy of the movie from a collection of movies he already had. He had purchased these movie years ago from a video vendor. I already had a DVD player to view the movie.

Competition between DVDs and Videos on demand is an example of increasing return. For example, store brought DVDs cost more than downloading a video from Netflix or another source. In extreme weather conditions, people are not going to travel to Wal-Mart or Best Buy to purchase expensive videos when they can download the movie and burn a copy for further use. People who typically burn copies of movies or videos have the options of viewing these videos or movies on their DVDs or computers. I think the cost and time factors are going to be the deciding elements that drive DVDs to extinction.

McLuhan’s Tetrad


ENHANCES: Downloaded movies and videos have the same quality as store brought movies. They also come in Blu-ray. They are relatively less expensive than movies purchase from Wal-Mart or Best Buy. You can also view these movies on both your computer and DVD players.


OBSOLETE: As more and more people download movie from Nexflix and other movies sites the DVD will become obsolete.


RETRIEVAL: Rekindle the old VHS that no longer exist.



REVERSAL: The WD TV HD Media Player allows you to play your downloaded movies, music or photos into your big screen. It accepts flash drives and external hard disks as media source.

References

Arthur, W. B. (1996). Increasing returns and the new world of business. Harvard Business Review, 74(4), 100−109. Search using the Business Source Premier database by the article's title.

Thornburg, D. (2008c). Red Queens, butterflies, and strange attractors: Imperfect lenses into emergent technologies. Lake Barrington, IL: Thornburg Center for Space Exploration.

Digital media players will replace DVD players in the future ...
Sep 3, 2009 ... I'm guessing that in the future, DVD's and BluRay discs will be limited to the collectors and disc enthusiasts. Similar to what happened ...
http://www.calvinshub.com/2009/09/digital-media-players-will-replace-dvd-players-in-the-future/

Paul Snyder: The Future of Cinephilia: Will Streaming Movies ...
Paul Snyder: The Future of Cinephilia: Will Streaming Movies Replace DVD? Huffington Post Media | Jun. 4, 2010, 7:25 PM | 0 | Comment » • comment ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-snyder/the-future-of-cinephilia_b_601437.html

Vodcasts:
Dr. Thornburg, “Increasing Returns” (approx. 5 minutes)
Dr. Thornburg, “Red Queens” (approx. 7 minutes)

THE DISRUPTIVE POWER OF SECOND LIFE

Dr.Thornburg in his (2008) podcast says that disruptive technology comes out of nowhere and obsolete an emerging technology. Disruptive technology is a term coined by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen to describe a new technology that unexpectedly displaces an established technology. In his 1997 best-selling book, "The Innovator's Dilemma," Christensen separates new technology into two categories: sustaining and disruptive. Sustaining technology relies on incremental improvements to an already established technology. Disruptive technology lacks refinement, often has performance problems because it is new, appeals to a limited audience, and may not yet have a proven practical application. (Whatis?com, 2008, p. 1).

Examples of Disruptive Technologies:


DVRs + Entertainment on DemandRemember programming your VCR to record TV shows? Of course you don't, because nobody did it--the task was too difficult and time-consuming. Fast-forward to the late 1990s and the introduction of the TiVo and ReplayTV digital video recorders. Time-shifting programs and fast-forwarding through commercials became as easy as pressing a couple of buttons. Suddenly people were no longer shackled to the arbitrary schedules of TV programmers and the obnoxious pandering of advertisers. Cable and satellite providers rushed out their own DVRs, and millions of folks began "TiVo-ing"--even those who had never touched an actual TiVo (Typan, D., 2008, p. 1)


YouTube + Cheap Digital Cameras and CamcordersOne word: macaca. When the candid video of former Senator George Allen calling someone a macaca (a monkey) appeared on YouTube, it not only cost him a Senate seat and altered the balance of power in the United States Congress, but it also demonstrated how far viral video had come. The Web is now the first stop for many political candidates and companies trying to spread the word about themselves or their products, and YouTube accounts for more than 60 percent of all video-site traffic, according to Hitwise.com (Typan, D., 2008, p. 2).

Philip Rosedale on Second Life
Philip Rosedale (avatar "Philip Linden") is the founder of Second Life, an online 3D virtual world inhabited by millions. He's chair of Linden Labs, the company behind the digital society. Why build a virtual world? Philip Rosedale (2008) talks about the virtual society he founded, Second Life and its underpinnings in human creativity. It's a place so different that anything could happen. If a disruptive technology is one that comes out of nowhere, and generate a huge impact on society than Second Life would be a disruptive technology. Second Life is a virtual world technology that can be use to create avatars and islands where these avatars resign. (The Daily Galaxy, 2007, p. 6). This technology has the potential of replacing a physical teaching environment with a virtual one. Second Life has five to ten years before it is replaced by another emerging technology. The social benefit of Second Life is being able to create avatars that interface with each other using motion and animation on a virtual island. People who are introverted would find Second Life an ideal place to reinvent themselves. The social implication of virtual worlds in my industry is illustrated by the EDTech Island in Second Life.

References

Clayton M. Christensen to describe a new technology that ... http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci945822,00.html

Dr. David Thornburg “Disruptive Technologies” (approx. 8 minutes)

Philip Rosedale on Second Life
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/the_inspiration_of_second_life.html

Second Life - The Daily Galaxy
Serious Web gurus see Second Life, which claims 3.3 million registered ... giving them the strength and power of what it represents and making them no longer human. ... Second Life is a disruptive technology on the level of the personal ...
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/second_life/

The 10 Most Disruptive Technology Combinations - PCWorld
Often, even great new technology needs a partner to really change the world. Here are 10 marriages of technologies that have shaken the digital world over ...
http://www.pcworld.com/.../the_10_most_disruptive_technology_combinations.html
By Dan Tynan, PCWorld Mar 19, 2008

What is disruptive technology? Definition from WhatIs.com - see ...
Jan 28, 2006 ... Disruptive technology is a term used by Harvard Business School professor
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci945822,00.html

RHYMES OF HISTORY

Dr. Thornburg (2008a) defines the Rhyme of History as being an affect or impact of a new development that rekindle something from the distance past. E-book rekindling goes all the way back to Plato the classical Greek Philosopher. How do E-books relates to Plato? Well Plato had a great distrust for the written word, stating that words were “silent; they cannot speak, answer questions, or come to their own defense” (The History of E-books, p. 1). If Plato were alive today, he would be flabbergasted at how wrong he was.

We can fast forward to Germany in 1440 and the invention of the Gutenberg printing press; even though movable type was already in use in China, a few hundred years earlier. The precision of the Gutenberg’s typesetting was the essential element required for western printing. The relatively inexpensive books were produced on paper, as opposed to parchment. This removed the power of the written word from the hands of the clergy and gave it to the educated middle class (The History of E-books, p. 1).

In 1830, Penny dreadful (similar to how modern comic books) made their appearance. In 1930, paperback books came on the scene. Most of these books would not have been allowed within a hundred yards of a public library or a reader of “serious” literature. Today paperback books are considered a legitimate form of publishing (The History of E-books, p. 1).

E-books appearance on the web was easily shared, was stored on a hard drive or storage disk, and quickly began to proliferate (The History of E-books, p. 1). This industry is still relatively young, generally marking its beginnings in 2000; however, its early years have been marked by market hype, investor fallout and slow market development. Today's industry is at a pivotal point: can obstacles to maturity be overcome or will the industry be either subsumed by the larger consumer electronics or web-based industries (Herther, 2005, p.45). The reason E-books are on an evolutionary path is that many consumers had not embraced the concept of reading literature from a computer until Oprah got involved. When Oprah Winfrey announced that Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader was her favorite gadget at that point, e-books met popular culture. Amazon couldn’t keep enough Kindles in stock to meet the demand. Sony also introduced a portable reader using the same e-ink display (The History of E-books, p. 2). V-Tech also joined the band wagon and introduced the V-Tech Reader for children four – seven years old.

E-books rekindle actual printed; bound books that came about many centuries ago. I believe this technology path is sustainable, because by the year of 2020, very few people will be reading from a traditional book and the e-book cost will decline much like the cost of the first calculator. This bring us back to the famous quote by Mark Twain, “History may not repeat itself, but it sure rhyme a lot” as quoted by (Dr. Thornburg, 2008a Vodcast --the Rhymes of History).

Another way to look at the Rhyme of History is through Kevin Kelly speech, “The next 5,000 Days of the Web,” wherein he discusses the ways the Web will be transformed over the next 5,000 days through embodiment, restricting, and codependency (Kelly, 2007).

Thornburg, D. (2008a). “Rhymes of History” Vobcast. Lake Barrington, IL: Thornburg Center for Space Exploration.

http://www.ebookweek.com/history.html

Kelly, K. (2007, December). The next 5,000 days of the Web [Speech]. Speech delivered at the EG 2007 Conference, Los Angeles. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html
Nancy K. Herther, (2005) "The e-book industry today: a bumpy road becomes an evolutionary path to market maturity", Electronic Library, The, 23-1 p. 45 – 53. Retrieve on January 5, 2011 from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1464892&show=html

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY TETRAD

Probably no means of communication has revolutionized the daily lives of ordinary people more than the telephone. The actual history of the telephone is a subject of complex dispute. The controversy began with the success of the invention and continues today. Some of the inventors credited with inventing the telephone include Antonio Meucci, Philip Reis, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell. Bell's experiments with his assistant Thomas Watson finally proved successful on March 10, 1876, when the first complete sentence was transmitted: "Watson, come here; I want you." (The Great Idea Finder, 1997-2007, p. 1).

Telephone technology has come a long way since Watson, come here, I want you. Cell phones as an emerging technology also have its own history. In today world, we can communicate with each other whether we are in the grocery store, the mall, from our cars, planes, and train. We can talk to each other while we are walking down the streets. Practically, we can talk to each other from everywhere, without using land phone. What a magnificent invention. We have progressed from land, wireless, and mobile phones. Dr Martin Cooper, a former general manager for the systems division at Motorola, is considered the inventor of the first portable handset and the first person to make a call on a portable cell phone in April 1973. The first call he made was to his rival, Joel Engel, Bell Labs head of research. (Cooper, M. (n.d.). Inventor of the cell phone, p. 1).

What does this technology do that is new?

Enhances, the way we communicate from the clouds. This new cell phone technology has a touch button screen and allows users to make calls, it allows the user to connect to the internet, search the Web, take a picture and create videos and upload and sent videos, text and receive messages, send and receive email and with this newest technology; play all types of games and have GPS functions as well as can upload e-books.

What does this technology replaces?

Obsolete: It has the potential of making old cell phone technology obsolete such has the cell phone that required you to type in the telephone number of your contracts and only allowed the users to take pictures and play simple games.

What does this technology bring to mind (or retrieve) form the past?

Retrieve: It rekindles how we communicated with each other in the past using the telegraph, which was invented in 1806, and telephone which was invented in 1876.

What might replace this technology in the future, or what might it cause to occur?

Reverses: As a technology futurist I project that this technology will morph into waistband cell technology that is activated by voice. This technology will be able to activate all your tools and applications. Show images on the walls and have GPS technology embedded.

Resources:
http://www.cellular.co.za/cellphone_inventor.htm
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/telephone.htm
http://affordablephones.net/HistoryCellular.htm
http://cellphones.org/cell-phone-history.html
http://www.htc.com/us/products/t-mobile-mytouch-4g?view=1-1&sort=0