Economic Development Article

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Fast-moving digital world - present and future

The growth in digital devices and rising broadband penetration is causing headaches as well as creating new opportunities for content owners, platform providers and technology companies alike, not to mention regulators.

Come together
Everyday media devices, including mobile phones, digital TVs and video gaming systems, look set this year to take a step closer to the truly converged media hardware so long predicted.

China/RegulationDigitisation gains
I have a map in my Beijing office produced here and China is at the centre - that makes the world look very different.

Industry under scrutiny
It's going to be a hectic year for Ofcom. The regulator, still busy looking into pay TV, is now due to review public service broadcasting.

Games
Video games and virtual worlds are both becoming an increasingly central part of big media companies' growth strategies, particularly to target younger people who spend large amounts of time online or on portable games consoles like the Nintendo DS.

Second-class and lost in the post

We often hear press reports about government I.T. projects costing millions but we are never told why the government has to pay over the market rate for these systems. I suspect it is because of the additional security routines and other procedures required to cope with the lack of initiative and common sense of many civil servants. I thought the story was an ill timed April fool. Surely nobody with an ounce of intelligence would entrust the personal records of millions of people to a courier? To be fair, this culprit is not the first. NHS records have been sent to rubbish tips and I remember an R.A.F. officer losing a briefcase full of sensitive data. Most worrying is the knowledge that nothing will change and this will happen again.

While we're at it, let's get rid of SOCAN - who died and made them ...

We do need something to change the mindset of an entire generation that believes stealing intellectual property in the form of music, movies, books, or software is OK. Its not, and its stiil theft and those people are still THIEVES.
This is endemic in the business sector as well. I used to work for a recording studio whose owner thought it ok to buy one copy of audio software, and then download illegal cracked copies to install in the other multiple computers in the company.
An anonymous tip to the business crime section of the local police department set him straight, and cost him a small fortune, much much more than the software he should have bought legally. We need teeth in the copyright law like this for the theft of music as well. Posted 11/01/08 at 9:34 AM EST | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment .

July 2006

General Electric, in addition to manufacturing the 3.6 MW turbines slated for the Cape Wind project, has embarked on a multi-year research effort to design a 7 MW far offshore unit. The U.S. Department of Energy has signed a $27 million contract with GE for this development. The advanced wind system concepts will include innovative foundations, construction techniques, rotor designs and electrical components designed for use in the ocean’s harsh environment [7].

So the question remains. How far in the future will these research and development projects become realistically competitive with shallow water projects? History is replete with promising technologies that have taken decades to commercialize. For example the evolution of the transistor to large scale integrated circuits of today has taken 50 years.

IconNicholson's SocialRetailing(SM) Solution Selected by Time Magazine ...

NEW YORK, Nov. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- IconNicholson, a leading full-service digital agency, has been recognized by Time Magazine for its ground-breaking SocialRetailing(SM) concept, which was named one of the top inventions of the year. The solution -- developed for renowned fashion designer Nanette Lepore and piloted at Bloomingdale's this past spring -- demonstrates the agency's commitment to its clients to innovate the customer experience at a time when the Internet and other emerging technologies are profoundly changing the game of marketing and world-class customer service.

SocialRetailing(SM) itself has come to represent what many are calling the first integration of Web 2.0 activities with real-world channels. Facebook, MySpace and other social sites are proving the power of social networks to influence purchasing decisions and buying behaviors; SocialRetailing(SM) connects that power with the in-store shopping experience and is the first of a wave of applications that IconNicholson envisions for the future of retail.