Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
A world where technology addicts live in a virtual reality fantasy world and anti-technology terrorists battle a network that has grown beyond the control of humans sounds like a hybrid of the Terminator and The Matrix movies. However, according to a survey of leading global internet experts that future is a distinct possibility in just 14 years.
A new online survey conducted by not for profit internet think tank Pew
Internet & American Life Project and North Carolina's Elon
University, sought the views of 742 active internet participants from
key technology groups, including the Internet Society, the World Wide
Web Consortium, the Working Group on Internet Governance, ICANN,
Internet2 and the Association of Internet Researchers.
Among the findings, a surprisingly high proportion of respondents
believe that a"autonomous technology" will be a problem, with humans
being cut out of the picture in a Terminator type of scenario.
The report states that 42% of respondents believe that: "By 2020,
intelligent agents and distributed control will cut direct human input
so completely out of some key activities such as surveillance, security
and tracking systems that technology beyond our control will generate
dangers and dependencies that will not be recognized until it is
impossible to reverse them. We will be on a "J-curve" of continued
acceleration of change."
Another disturbing prediction by a clear majority of respondents is one
in which a subculture of anti-tech luddites is created leading to acts
of terrorism against the technology infrastructure.
A surprising 58% of respondents believe: "By 2020, the people left
behind (many by their own choice) by accelerating information and
communications technologies will form a new cultural group of
technology refuseniks who self-segregate from "modern" society. Some
will live mostly "off the grid" simply to seek peace and a cure for
information overload while others will commit acts of terror or
violence in protest against technology."
The world is not necessarily painted as totally rosy for those who do embrace technology, however.
According to the survey, 56% of respondents believe that the attractive
nature of virtual-reality worlds will lead to serious addiction
problems for many, as we lose people to alternate realities.
On the positive side, 46% respondents believe that transparency of
information will build a better world but at the expense of privacy.
According to the report: "As sensing, storage and communication
technologies get cheaper and better, individuals' public and private
lives will become increasingly transparent globally. The benefits will
outweigh the costs." However, 49% disagreed with that view.
Finally, a slim majority subscribed to view that the internet will
enable worldwide access to success, with 52% believing that: "By 2020,
the free flow of information will completely blur current national
boundaries as they are replaced by city-states, corporation-based
cultural groupings and/or other geographically diverse and reconfigured
human organizations tied together by global networks."
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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