The Future of Digital Technology

Innovation! How to innovate, win competitive advantage. Retail Industry ...

2011-11-11T05:26:00.000-08:00

Innovation means doing things differently to serve customers better. How to innovate and why all innovation is about divergence not convergence. Innovation that simply imitates competitors, product features, design or brand elements, just means that all products and services look identical in every way, which means you can only differentiate yourself from competition based on price. Long term sustainable competitive advantage will always come from finding new ways to excell, exceed customer expectations. Technigues for innovation including open innovation and crowdsourcing using wikipedia type models to solve complex innovation challenges. How to encourage innovative teams and processes. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Patrick Dixon - lecture at Hermes client event for UK retailers on retail industry trends.

How (not) to do video calls: virtual teams management advice - Leadershi...

2011-07-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

Video calls, virtual teams and virtual organisations. How to communicate effectively on video calls. Customer + team passion, change management - leadership styles to change teams, structures, processes, organisations, businesses. Take hold of your future: emotions. Lessons from the past in trends analysis, growth strategies, leadership training, motivational speaker. Patrick Dixon biography, bio, cv - ranked one of world's 20 most influential business thinkers alive today (Thinkers 50 2005) Great events change people: 4,500 event organisers(MPI. Keynote conference speaker (MPI).Future corporate events: motivational leadership programmes, executive education, team development, innovation seminars, strategy workshops, consumer groups, marketing forums, competitor analysis think tanks, team building exercises and motivational client events.

Nokia - will they manage turnaround with Windows Mobile?

2011-06-23T00:57:00.000-07:00

Key issue for Nokia is agility: being able to change at high speed. Nokia is one of the world's most advanced engineering companies - but has been less strong in the past (their CEO has also made statements about this) when it comes to customer insight. You can have the best innovation teams but if the end products fail to connect with consumer passions and imaginations, your new products will fail to sell.

Clouds and Crowds: Seize your Digital Future

2011-06-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

Clouds and Crowds: Seize your Digital Future: "CONVERGENCE

We think about convergence of technologies, and of businesses such as information and entertainment companies. But convergence also demands multi-skilled, multidisciplinary teams. People with unusual combinations of experiences and training. Globalisation of every large business, mergers, acquisitions – all these create new leadership pressures when it comes to sharing information. New blends of products and services. Blurring of differences between different kinds of corporations.

CONNECTIONS

Beyond increasingly mobile connections between people, to connections between apparently unrelated ideas and facts. Semantic web. Example: fraud detection in banking using complex data analysis to identify patterns of unusual activity, including unusual interactions between people. Example: detection of viral mutations and new patterns of disease. Example: predicting behaviour of customers through multivariate analysis. All these things require a much more sophisticated approach to data. A recent UK survey showed that in the largest corporations:

•85% allow wireless access
•90% allow remote access
•75% use software as a service / cloud
•44% entrust critical services to 3rd party"

Clouds, Crowds, Convergency, Connections and Controls:IT GROWTH STRATEGIES

2011-05-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

Key themes: rapidly changing nature of business, external operating environments, velocity of change in consumer and competitor behaviour, shifts in patterns of work, collaboration and partnership - relevant to key industries such as financial services and health.   CONVERGENCE  We think about convergence of technologies, and of businesses such as information and entertainment companies. But convergence also demands multi-skilled, multidisciplinary teams. People with unusual combinations of experiences and training. CIO and COO industry strategy. Globalisation of every large business, mergers, acquisitions -- all these create new leadership pressures when it comes to sharing information. New blends of products and services. Blurring of differences between different kinds of corporations.  CONNECTIONS  Beyond increasingly mobile connections between people, to connections between apparently unrelated ideas and facts. Semantic web. Example: fraud detection in banking using complex data analysis to identify patterns of unusual activity, including unusual interactions between people. Example: detection of viral mutations and new patterns of disease. Example: predicting behaviour of customers through multivariate analysis. All these things require a much more sophisticated approach to data. A recent UK survey showed that in the largest corporations:  •85% allow wireless access •90% allow remote access •75% use software as a service / cloud •44% entrust critical services to 3rd party  CLOUDS  A digital world which is independent of any particular technology, device, platform, operating system. Everything everywhere, all the time. Corporations need to catch up with how their own teams are behaving in their private lives - storing all their e-mail, photos, videos, documents on remote servers owned by organisations like Facebook or Google. 25% of large corporations plan partial migration into the cloud in the next 2 years, 11% in 12 months. This is already a $56bn / year, and will be $150bn by 2013, according to Gartner. As part of the same trends we can expect to see rapid growth in software as a service -- hosted on other company's servers.  CROWDS  Beyond virtual teams, virtual working and virtual organisations. Innovation in the past has tended to be limited to the capacity of teams inside organisations - even if they are spread across many time zones and sites. Expect rapid growth of crowd-sourcing or open innovation, with the same mindset as Wikipedia or Twitter: harnessing the intellectual power of communities to solve complex problems fast in profitable ways. Cost of innovation is shifting from cost of creating the ideas to the legal costs of protecting them, in a relatively open environment. We have seen widespread use of open innovation in computing, innovation in green technology, and also in health -- for example matching disease to genetic code.  CONTROLS  Convergence, connections, clouds and crowds - each of these is creating new risks which are increasing dramatically. Corporations can only embrace these four Cs above by also building much more sophisticated controls. Such security needs to be dynamic: responding in the right way according to actual risk, without slowing down and frustrating our management and innovation teams. But we can also use Convergence, Connections, Clouds and Crowds to help find and develop the innovations we need in Controls.Summary of Keynote conference presentation for Ricoh by Patrick Dixon, Futurist speaker and author of Futurewise. Other topics: virtual teams, virtual working, hacking, data loss, fraud detection, enterprise growth, IT strategy and system stability, IT risk management, server reliability, denial of service attacks, viral attacks, industrial espionage, detection of criminal activity in banks. Risk management -- reducing down-time and increasing system recovery speed.

Social networks impact on democracy, dictatorships and freedom of inform...

2011-05-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

Democracy and democratic pressures from social networks. Cover ups and government deceptions, impact of wikileaks on government internal communications and policies. Freedom of information and corruption. Politics and political change. Impact of SMS, twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Youtube and other social networks on dictatorships v democracy. How dictators fear loss of political power from freedom of information. Use of mobile technology, smart phones and other communication devices to drive protests and public disorder. How governments and dictatorships have switched off mobile telephones and SMS, web access etc to maintain political control. How power is shifting from government leaders, police and army control to small groups of local activists. Politics and wikileaks impact on government action, media, TV, radio and national press. Video by Futurist Patrick Dixon, author of Futurewise and Building a Better Business.

How I became a hologram

2010-05-07T04:10:00.000-07:00

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Hologram creation for virtual keynote conference presentation for TEB in Istanbul by Futurist Patrick Dixon.

Tubemogul: free online video distribution. Tubemogul review

2008-06-21T04:49:00.001-07:00

Tubemogul is a brilliant free online video publishing site which I discovered a few weeks ago and has made my life a lot easier when uploading to different video hosting destinations. Tubemogul allows you to publish instantly the same video to 12 or more different video hosting sites. Tubemogul will publish videos to Myspace, Youtube, Yahoo, Metacafe, Google, Revver, Dailymotion, Blip,Veoh, Crackle, Stupidvideos, Sclipo, Viddler and Howcast. Tubemogul also allows free centralised video reporting,video viewing statistics, video daily reports, video viewing weekly e-mail summaries, video viewing figures for individual uploaded videos by day, week, month, group video viewing figures, demographic and national online video viewing patterns. Tubemogul also allows you to manage all comments on online videos from one central point. Review of Tubemogul by Dr Patrick Dixon, Futurist conference keynote speaker and author of 12 books including Futuewise. See http://www.globalchange.com . Tubemogul enables videos to be recalled from some sites and descriptions to be updated. Tubemogul team members need to approve your account for sending to sites with specific requirements like Howcast. Keywords and video type are both mapped onto different video hosting site classifications -- not always an easy process. Tubemogul video distribution is free to low-volume users but is increasingly being used on a commercial basis by online marketing companies as a rapid way to launch viral videos, new advertising videos, music videos and so on. Tubemogul is developing fast with new features being added regularly and is filling an important niche market for regular video producers who are keen to see instant wide online distribution of their new video productions. Tubemogul does not do everything and video makers who publish online should still take care to visit the individual video hosting sites regularly to ensure everything is working correctly, video producer information is up to date, and so on. So: Tubemogul works well, and is really useful. Optimisation / optimization is easy to help improve online video search engine rankings and increase viewing figures. Video sites are developing fast and powerful search engine optimisation of videos has only just begun. Tubemogul also makes it easy to promote videos to online communities and online forums.
Video hosting, tubemogul, stream, streaming, online marketing, video uploads, publishing, viral, reporting, free service, web communities, youtube, metacafe

Digital memory -- plug in for your brain

2008-03-31T10:08:00.000-07:00

Fusing computer memory with brain tissue. Biodigital brains. Plug in modules for languages or data? Animal experiments. Digital memory extensions. Future of digital learning. Impact on education and university life. Video on future of education, high schools, colleges, universities, curriculum, trends, syllabus, exams, assessments, business schools, MBAs, degree courses - by Dr Patrick Dixon, Futurist conference keynote speaker for NAIS.

Multichannel learning in Blackberry, YouTube and i-pod world

2008-03-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

Engaging students in education using new technology, distance learning, impact of multimedia, distance learning, new classroom technology and techniques. Limitations of human speech and traditional classroom teaching skills. Why teaching methods need to change. Why books still have place in future. How to scan text, how to read a whole book in 10 minutes and scan a big newspaper in 5 minutes. Primary examination skills in future. Why scanning text needs to be taught to every pupil as a skill. Summarise, question, challenge. Video on future of education, high schools, colleges, universities, curriculum, trends, syllabus, exams, assessments, business schools, MBAs, degree courses - by Dr Patrick Dixon, Futurist conference keynote speaker for NAIS. (less)

Online Communities Change the World - marketing and consumer

2008-03-29T04:42:00.000-07:00

Impact of YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, TripAdvisor and other online communities. Why traditional advertising agencies cannot respond. Power of community opinion. New marketing models. Why online communities are trusted more than official websites or information sources. Web 2.0. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon.

Future of education -- instant knowledge in an online ...

2008-03-28T08:34:00.001-07:00

Old style education focus on memory and knowledge. New style education needs to focus on how to find immediate answers to complex problems from a starting point of ignorance, using new technology. How education promotes useless skills and neglects primary requirements eg instant summary of state of knowledge, fine to draw heavily on existing material. But in education such a summary could be rejected as plagiarism. But in business originality is often less important than a superb summary. Radical changes needed in examinations, assessments. Future of examinations -- online, using keyboard to prepare answers, assistance is allowed, using existing sources is encouraged. Impact of Google on education. Impact on Universities. Need to teach evaluation methods to assess authority of online sources. References. Video on future of education, high schools, colleges, universities, curriculum, trends, syllabus, exams, assessments, business schools, MBAs, degree courses - by Dr Patrick Dixon, Futurist conference keynote speaker for NAIS.

Better and Different - convergence, divergence, ...

2008-03-27T04:38:00.001-07:00

Better and different -- convergence and divergence
http://www.globalchange.com Divergence or convergence? Consumer focus, IT systems, software and mobile phones. Multiple devices and systems. Multiple capabilities and features. Innovation, divergence, new products and services. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon.

Mobile phones and banks, banking transactions future trends

2008-03-26T04:37:00.000-07:00

Banks will become phone companies and telecom companies will become banks. Mobile payment systems, micropayments, mobile phone credit card transactions and loans. Economic impact of remittances from foreign workers using SMS credit to avoid foreign exchange transaction costs. How biometrics fingerprint technology will allow large mobile phone payments. Commissions and interest charges on loans. Impact of revenues from American Express, Visa, Delta, Access, Mastercard moving to mobile phone transactions. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon.

Intellectual copyright: many businesses will give ideas away

2008-03-25T04:24:00.000-07:00

Future of futurists bright because future trends soon become the past. Giving away intellectual capital. Wikipedia and YouTube world. Intellectual property only has power when released and used by others. Future is about giving away knowledge and ideas. Future of universities and research institutions, future of music and music industry. How to understand future trends. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon.

Future of Music - the secret of great music

2007-06-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

What exactly is music? The secret of great music. Physics of sound and how it communicates. How all great music connects with passion and all great performers provoke a response from those who listen. The elusive magic of a world class musician and why live performance will become increasingly important in a virtual, online world. Comment by Dr Patrick Dixon, futurist, leading authority on global trends, conference speaker – (bad) player of many different instruments and amateur composer.

Search engines and personal privacy - invading our space? - Video

2007-06-23T11:44:00.000-07:00

Big controversy over personal privacy using code on your computer to track search requests, and enable a personal profile to be built up. This means that search results and advertising can be targeted to the individual person using a web browser. Search engine cookies from engines like Google had been set in the past to remain active for more than a decade. Under pressure from the EU, Google recently announced that the two years of user history they keep would be reduced to 18 months. Expect pressure to continue for personal opt out boxes enabling search engine users to block personal data from being stored. Expect search engines to push back perhaps by only allowing the fullest search results for those who give personal data to be stored. As it is they will claim (correctly) that personal history is vital to make the results as relevant as possible. Expect big civil rights debates and worries about invasion of personal life by security agencies. Video comment by Dr Patrick Dixon, futurist, leading authority on global trends and conference speaker.

Future of Music Industry

2007-06-22T11:35:00.001-07:00

Future of music, EMI, Sony, music publishing, music industry, video industry, downloads, live performance, concerts, home made bands, band management, YouTube music bands, MySpace bands, performing artists and why live music is best. Tribute bands and buskers, Rolling Stones band example of premium for being tribute band to themselves. Why audience experience is everything and entertainment is king. Comment by Dr Patrick Dixon, futurist, leading authority on global trends and conference speaker.

YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Google, Yahoo, MSN – security worries - privacy, MI5, CIA, KGB?

2007-06-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 groups such as Facebook offer huge new opportunities for people to network with others... and could represent a powerful recruiting mechanism for all kinds of antisocial groups, activist networks and extremists of various kinds. Being able to identify friends of friends could make it easier for group leaders to target others who may share similar values (as well as friends) and who might be open to (for example) meeting to discuss things that they would prefer not to talk about online.

Online community sites also offer security services an extraordinarily powerful new tool for inspecting the history of an individual’s social life. In a few year’s time it will be possible for security services to check out for example many of the people an office worker was friendly with while at University a long time before. Experience shows that old friends are often important in an individual’s subsequent development.

Dr Patrick Dixon talks to Chad Hurley, founder YouTube on the meteoric rise of YouTube and implications for online community building. Google Zeitgeist CEO Summit.

By 2012 today's teens will rule

2007-06-13T03:31:00.000-07:00

"Dr Patrick Dixon, chairman of Global Change and Europe's leading futurist, says today's teens often do many things at once: simultaneously watching YouTube, doing homework and talking on the mobile is a snip. They prefer internet chat to email (which is slow and boring). They are seasoned internet researchers and they share themselves, their thoughts, hopes and creative product with the world."

The Age, Melbourne - published today

http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/by-2012-todays-teens-will-rule/2007/06/12/1181414299813.html

See also Patrick Dixon video on the Web.2 generation

Second Life - Future of Virtual Worlds

2007-06-12T10:49:00.000-07:00

The Second Life virtual community is settling down after a period of phenomenal growth. I met a senior member of the development team recently who tells me that they are experiencing all the economic challenges of a small country, with over 34 million citizens of which 50,000 are online and moving around at any time engaging with others. The latest upgrade to Second Life means you can talk to people and maybe one day you will be able to create a three dimensional image of yourself though most people seem to prefer a fictional name and appearance.

The governors of the world have to meet every few days to keep an eye on currency, exchange rates and inflation. When real estate prices rise too high they release more land for development – but if they release too much they could cause a price crash, and also create too much space for people to wander around in without meeting too many other people. They also need to watch out for currency stability and when the Linden dollar to US dollar gets too high they print more money.
The creators of Second Life don’t actually sell any products or services to citizens, relying on the rest of the community to organise themselves.

The average age of a Second Life user is over 40 - and many are over 65. While men and women are roughly equal in numbers of users, women tend to stay in thew virtual world longer and so there are usually slightly more women than men in Second Life.

Make It Work! Scandal: technology sold which doesn't work

2007-06-09T06:08:00.001-07:00

Many companies sell technology which does not work. Example: most senior managers have problems getting mobile phones and PCs to synchronise properly, or find their systems crash, are bugged, unreliable - and do NOT work as claimed by manufacturers. This is a huge scandal and abuse of customer time and money. Companies need to hugely improve reliability and simplicity and as they do they will gain sales, market share and brand awareness. Part of conference lecture for MTN by Dr Patrick Dixon, Futurist and author Futurewise.

How online communities are killing off traditional advertising and brand management

2007-06-07T00:12:00.000-07:00

Dr Patrick Dixon at Google Zeitgeist - CEO event. Chairing session on "Entertain Me" - impact of online communties such as YouTube and e-Bay on marketing, media, advertising, brand management and so on.

The YouTube story - interview with co-founder Chad Hurley

2007-06-05T01:22:00.001-07:00

Dr Patrick Dixon talks to Chad Hurley, founder YouTube on the meteoric rise of YouTube to a $1.6bn corporation in just 18 months and implications for online community building. Google Zeitgeist CEO Summit.

Future of Internet

2007-05-28T04:42:00.000-07:00

More on RFIDs or Radio Frequency Identification devices - TV interview

10 billion computers the size of a grain of sand

2007-05-27T04:40:00.000-07:00

RFID technology - wireless barcodes. Why Wal-Mart needs 10 billion in the next 12 months. Revolution in distribution, retailing, wholesale - and how these computer chips fuse to brain tissue to create biodigital intelligence.

Digital growth - finger vein recognition on phones etc

2006-06-26T08:24:00.000-07:00

Hitachi tells me that they will be able by 2008 to put finger vein recognition into phones, which means we can have ultra-secure payment systems using mobiles. As for watching TV on phones – a little like hard work unless the screen is large enough. Having said that, a friend of mine was travelling recently and realised a good proportion of people on the train were watching video clips on their phones (Japan).

Combine it with Slingbox and you can watch on your phone wherever you are in the world whatever is on your TV system at home, and change channels as well.

Intelligent clothes - gimmick or market trend? - and virtual real estate takes off

2006-06-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

So i-pod is selling an add-on for Nike, allowing runners to see output on the i-pod generated from the electronics in their trainers. Gap is selling a hooded garment with speakers in the hood itself…. And the there is virtual real estate itself.

Some of these are fads and others are for real.

OK so the market for digitally enhanced clothing is small and likely to remain modest, but gaming is a whole new story. According to Catherine Smith, Linden Lab (owner's of Second Life) director of marketing, "In January of 2006, Second Life residents exchanged $1,384,752,765 in-world 'Linden' dollars, or over $5 million U.S. dollars.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2006/id20060502_832540.htm

“If you haven't heard of Anshe Chung yet — you will. She's a "real" estate agent... but not your ordinary "real" estate agent. She's not real, at least not in the flesh and blood sense. She's merely the online avatar for a Chinese-born language teacher living near Frankfurt, Germany. But her virtual business is very real. Second Life members pay "Linden dollars" (the in-game currency) to rent or buy virtual homes from Chung. However, Lifers can convert that "play money" into real U.S. dollars by using their credit card at online currency exchanges. Today Chung's firm currently has about $250,000 U.S. dollars worth of virtual land and currency holdings.”

Bill Gates to leave Microsoft for philanthropy mission

2006-06-24T04:02:00.000-07:00

“With Bill Gates planning to leave Microsoft management to fully dedicate himself to his $29.1 billion foundation's work, America's philanthropic movement has its latest grand champion.

Characterized by intense engagement, innovative operations and emphasis on results, the style of philanthropy that Gates embodies stems from the nation's tech boom and is most prevalent in states like California and Washington.”

It is easy to be cynical but most people I meet are deeply impressed by all that Bill and Belinda Gates have been doing.

Future of Retail Marketing - by Dr Patrick Dixon for Envision Denmark

2006-06-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

Future of Retail Marketing - by Dr Patrick Dixon for Envision Denmark

I really hope you enjoy this presentation which I gave in Arrhus, with the co-founder of Pret a Manger, Sinclair Beecham. Innovation, creativity, design and good marketing will contribute to business success but the most successful organisations will go further in understanding how consumers will think and feel. Huge market opportunities - for example the growing economic power of women, and of those over the age of 60, together with 1 billion children becoming adults in emerging markets in the next 15 years

The future of europe, economic outlook, impact of new technology on productivty and other issues - by Dr Patrick Dixon for SAP client event

2006-06-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

The future of europe, economic outlook, impact of new technology on productivty and other issues - by Dr Patrick Dixon for SAP client event:

These are the slides of the presentation I gave to the 50 top clients of SAP at their Saphire event in Paris which this year attracted many thousands of participants. SAP is of course a prominent success story - and a rare one - involving a European company and a global market. SAP is strong, with a wide range of products designed to improve business integration and performance.

"Future economic outlook for the European Union and impact of new technology on future productivity. SAP event for top 50 clients - joint session with SAP's CEO at Saphire 2006. Reasons why EU productivity grown so slowly compared to US. Can EU catch up and maintain a manufacturing base in the face of severe competition from China and India? Why information technology will play key role. Challenges for business and government "

Future Trends in Technology and Management - for Fujitsu Siemens by Dr Patrick Dixon

2006-06-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

Future Trends in Technology and Management - for Fujitsu Siemens by Dr Patrick Dixon

This presentation to 2000 people for Fujitsu Siemens is now available as an online powerpoint plus video, covering a wide range of technology-related issues such as consumer behaviour, virtual working, virtual teams and so on.

Huge need to make technology simpler - a scandal

2006-06-11T02:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I asked an audience of CIOs and other technology people to put their hands up if they had experienced serious problems getting their personal organisers (PDAs) to communicate with their computers, problems with synchronisation etc.

The majority put their hands up. I always find the same – even when speaking at events organised by computer or software companies for their own people.

It is a real scandal: I have had huge problems myself, and I also consider myself computer literate, have been consulting in IT and speaking to IT audiences for over 25 years.

If we can’t get these PDAs and computers to talk, who can? It is a scandal that these kinds of products and solutions are sold when they are so unreliable. It is a complete and utter waste of executive time to sell these things when the only way to make them work is to spend 10 hours on helplines…without certainty of a solution.

My own problem? I have over 6500 outlook contacts and there is not a single PDA on the market that can cope because of internal memory limitations which are pathetically small despite the fact that I have external memory card of a gigabyte. The system becomes unstable and has to be constantly reset,

The external card cannot be accessed by Outlook on Windows Mobile, and the alternative Symbian operating system used by Nokia is also unable to cope.

Video conferencing set for take-off? - IT Week

2006-06-06T03:40:00.000-07:00

For years now I have had my own web tv studio at home which also is used for videoconferencing. The studio can connect to up to 9 conferences in different countries at the same time. This was needed a couple of years back during the SARS crisis when delegates were unable to travel.

Skype has now introduced a new video option which is easy to use and is proving a useful tool in linking teams around the world.

Old style conferencing was in board rooms and had users experienced frequent technical difficulties. New style is always available wherever you are as an add-on to voice calls.

Expect rapid growth of video calls as part of virtual team work.

Is video conferencing set for take-off? - IT Week

2006-06-05T03:35:00.000-07:00

Is video conferencing set for take-off? - IT Week

Dominance of Wikipedia - threat of legal action may force tightening up of editing access

2006-05-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

Watch out for the rising star of Wikipedia which now is starting to dominate search engine results. This co-operative information guide is astonishing not only for speed of growth but also for the fact that it is still completely open (to abuse). Anyone in the world can go onto the site and alter any page in any way they like. So far the anarchists have been contained by active monitoring by the rest of the community, but this kind of openness is already melting away. It is now necessary to log in a s a registered user to create new pages, and I predict it will not be long before a series of high profile legal threats force Wikipedia to tighten up further. The problem is sensitive when for example people write untrue things on entries for political leaders – which has happened recently.

The future of digital technology

2006-04-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

Watch out for RFIDs - radio frequency identification devices - the size of a grain of sand. Expect more than 100 billion of these minute computer systems to be used every year by 2010, in manufacturing, wholesale, distribution and retail as well as by airlines in luggage tracing, in health care and many other settings.

They need no battery, can last up to 100 years, and suck power out of the places where they operate using electromagnetic waves.