One of my favorite things so far in Dracula Daily is finding out Kodak cameras existed in Dracula times. I mean of course they did (the oldest surviving photo is from 1826) but it’s still a brand name today. The first Kodak was from 1888.
Kodak box cameras like this weren’t a tech invention really. Their popularity was from simplifying down to point and shoot, and more importantly taking development and reloading away from the photographer. For $2 ($65 today) you’d send in the whole camera and they’d send you a reloaded one with 100 shots in it.
By the time Dracula came out you could get what we now call a “prosumer” Kodak camera. It had replaceable parts and accessories but you could still just point and shoot. What did photos from this look like? Appropriately spooky!
Ten decades back during the.com business model was more than a bit shaky and as the internet has produced more millionaires than any other medium in contemporary business, the technology areas are blasted into the stratosphere.
All of us know that technologyplays a significant role in our everyday life, from the mobile phone we carry with us into the GPS systems that farmers use to browse their subjects. Some companies still continue doing things the"old school" way, but is there really any benefit for businesses to rely on paper and pencil when there are a lot.
For some businesses and businesses it is tough to see the benefit of choosing the new technologies and attempting to find ways to incorporate them into their existing business processes. For others it feels like a"no brainier", but every company must decide for themselves.
What new technologies are available for a firm may differ quite a bit depending on what market they’re involved in. This is a significant change for companies that have been doing business for several years and using the exact procedures.
This is a question that many are asking as the group of businesses that refuse to step into the twenty first century is decreasing. Today’s technology does pose many benefits for a business, some immediately recognizable and a few that only become visible with years of execution.
The significant technology barrier for many smaller businesses is the initial cost of implementation. This can be a substantial amount for many businesses and because the return won’t be seen for many years to come, this can be a massive stumbling stone as a provider attempts to move forward and benefit from all the newer technologies have to provide their companies bottom line.
In virtually every case a business can save a whole lot of cash in the years to come by converting old methodology into fresh, and it is only one of the benefits. If your workplace is operating from paper, then you could be more vulnerable to a disaster than you might think.
Using a computer system to keep tabs on customers, orders and any other documents can’t just cut down on man hours, but it could also make backing up your data off site a snap. Then if anything happens to your office, say a fire, flood or some other natural disaster, your business isn’t lost, you can always recover your vital information in a mater of minutes to a different computer.
This is one advantage you won’t find when you’re putting a pencil to paper to record your valuable business information. If you’re considering to incorporate more technology into your business, you might want to check at all of the benefits it can give you before you opt to keep on keeping on.
The new business models which are proving to be the most successful are those who exploit the power of today’s technology. If your staff isn’t technically inclined, that is no excuse, you could always get some office automation training for your entire staff an bring all of them into the next generation of business together!
Technologies Shaping Business Today
There’s no denying that we live in a technically motivated universe. If you own and operate a business, it’s very likely that you employ technology to a certain extent in operating and promoting your business also. If you can do so effectively, you’ll discover that it provides many benefits but if you’re lacking in this respect, you might end up left behind.
Here are some suggestions which may allow you to get the most from the technology that’s available to your business and to continue to develop with that technology also. Among the main things for you to think about with your business is its online presence. If you don’t have your business website based, now’s the time to do so.
This may be a little bit stressful, particularly if you’re uncomfortable with building sites or if you’re not very knowledgeable about the Internet. It is possible to hire a comparatively inexpensive business to build you a great looking site that can enable you to take your business on the Internet. It will include everything from the own contact information to social media marketing, all using your own domain name.
Additionally it is possible that you use the Internet in addition to using your local network to contact people and also to remain in contact with each other efficiently. Employing an audio visual company can help you in doing so with the least amount of problem potential. They’ll enable you to get things set up so you could have conferences, both in and outside of your business circles.
They might also suggest some high tech equipment for specific businesses, such as Lenore, so you get the most from the experience. Do you work with money and checks? Even though it’s still important to provide those options to your clients that want to use them, be certain you are also offering the capability for them to pay with credit card.
In case you have an established business with a tax ID number along with a business checking account, you can find a merchant account so you can start accepting credit cards. This can be achieved by phone, in person or you may even take credit card orders using the Internet.
Most individuals will find it very convenient once you start offering this alternative to them and they might contemplate switching to using credit cards to your payments, that is extremely convenient for you. Finally, be certain you’re using the Internet effectively to promote your business and for all your marketing needs.
You can buy advertising via the search engines for a reasonable rate, as long as you understand what you’re doing. Additionally it is possible that you create an email list or maybe use Facebook to speak to your clients and potential customers regularly.
I have another meta-analysis before getting into the plot content of The Midnight Gospel episodes. This time, I’m exploring the recurring motif of Clancy’s taking a pair of shoes with him as souvenirs of his trips to the virtual multiverse, again, highlighting as I did in my previous post that the planets and people he visits are indeed virtual.
But before getting into the shoes at the end of each episode, it is relevant to discuss how each episode begins. Clancy orders Computer, his home A.I., to bring up worlds for him to visit. After which, Clancy gets to choose from a series of custom avatars what he wants to look like for his trip.
The act of shopping for universes and customising exactly how you appear to the world is the epitome of convenience. Clancy isn’t just realising he can buy a product on the Internet instead of going to a store, he’s acquiring a planet and all its natural and artificial riches.
This isn’t a stretch either. Later on in the series, we meet a family of Multiverse Simulator farmers, who mine each world for its expensive artefacts and sell them for money in the tangible reality where the show takes place.
On top of that, each episode has a familiar flow, with Clancy entering the world, conducting his interview, and the world coming to its apocalyptic end, with Clancy hilariously getting caught up in the middle of things. Despite this, Clancy is in no real danger, because at any time he can summon Computer to take him back outside the simulator. Moreover, his body is safely in his home the entire time.
Then Clancy simply proceeds with the rest of his life. He uploads the space-cast and lets the view (yes, singular) roll in.
“Computer, do it NOW”
What’s striking is how transactional Clancy’s relationships with those around him are for majority of the show. He listens to his interviewees and offers them a modicum of respect, but that’s also because for the most part he finds himself agreeing with what they’re saying. The times he doesn’t like what he’s hearing, such as with David, there’s so much resistance, so much tuning out. It’s only David’s patience and gentle prodding that Clancy opens up enough to listen to what he has to say and calm down.
Two things to note on that. First, David is under no obligation to teach Clancy anything. He doesn’t have to put up with an angry octopus who just ruined his painting, came into his place, and started screaming at him. It just so happens that his personal philosophy makes it less likely for occurrences like that to faze him. Second, Clancy wasn’t planning on doing an interview with David. There’s a chance he wasn’t planning to do an interview at all. He was trying to get into the simulator to escape a call he did not want to hear.
Computer calls him out on it as well, saying,
It’s become clear to me that you’ve been avoiding dealing with the real world by going into my many universes.
All the while Clancy is talking over him with the same dismissive attitude, tuning out what advice Computer is giving, just like the phone call or voice messages he’s been avoiding.
Though we don’t know what Clancy’s life was before the events of the first episode, we do know that since then, he’s been living in a way that suited him. Doing the things he more or less enjoyed. Despite this, he still had responsibilities and generally, just things he didn’t want to do. The most evident in the episode was his severe neglect of Computer, causing the malfunctions that threw him into a fit of rage in the first place.
It’s in this episode that he finally interacts with people outside the simulator. We are introduced to his neighbours, the aforementioned simulator farmers, We meet Bryce, the fidgety Multiverse Simulator repairman. And his interactions with them are transactional. He calls on them because he needs something– a way to fix his simulator. He humours them because he thinks they can offer him what he wants, and when they didn’t, he left them immediately.
In my first post of The Midnight Gospel analysis playlist, I talked about how it was so easy to respond to your own need to be comfortable and satisfied because your needs are immediate and urgent to you. You feel them and when you don’t answer them they gnaw at you and caw at the back of your mind until you satiate them.
I want to emphasise that the harm is not that we are born self-centred. No, that’s a fact of life. We need to take care of ourselves as individuals before we can function in the world we live in. It’s a survival instinct. It becomes problematic when self-preservation and self-comfort are where we stop.
It’seasy to focus on yourself and only yourself, forever. It’s convenient. On top of that, it’s enabled by all our new technology. In the show, it’s having a semi-sentient home A.I. and a multiverse simulator to escape to and profit from.
There are a lot of parallels to this in our world. Digital spaces, personalised content, economic privilege. In these cases, you can just stay in your comfy warm bubble and never leave it.
The Extreme Comfort Zone
Some concrete examples involve the consumption of media. I don’t want to sound like a crotchety old person and I’m not disparaging anyone. Something I’ve noticed, though, is how my younger family members only watch video streaming sites. Exclusively they watch content that caters to their very niche interests. This stands in stark contrast to when cable television monopolised home entertainment, because you couldn’t decide which shows would air and you couldn’t decide when they would air. You’d have to make an effort to make time for the series you wanted to watch, and in the act of waiting around for a show you were interested in, you’d stumble upon other channels, movies, or series that were interesting.
This is not to say that the democratisation of entertainment is a bad thing. I’m glad that people now have a greater say in the content they consume, they way my younger self did not, and I’m glad people have more spaces to share their niche interests in a way my younger alienated self could only have dreamed. However, this setup brings to the forefront our very transactional relationship with not only mainstream media but individual and independent content creators.
Watching movies is another example. In a theatre, you either sit through an entire movie or you walk out if it’s too unbearable. If a scene is too tense or suspenseful, you have no way of knowing whether or not you’re close to the end or if there will even be a happy resolution.
A habit I’ve noticed with family and friends, especially the younger ones, easily lets me know when they’re bored or uncomfortable. When we’re watching a video or streaming a movie, they’ll tap on the screen to see how much time is left in the running.
And there’s an underlying message to that. If what we’re seeing or hearing isn’t something tailored to our specific interests, then it’s not worth consuming. If it’s too long, then I didn’t read it. If the art is kind of weird, then it’s not enough to keep watching, no matter the message. (This is real. I know people who tell me they refuse to watch a show like Adventure Time or BoJack Horseman or anyanime because they don’t like the art).
It’s perfectly within one’s rights to skip to end of a book or a film. Life is short. We’re always busy. The modern world has a lot of demands and sometimes you just want to turn off your brain and enjoy something.
But on the rare days you have free time and energy to spare, you can venture outside the realm of what is reassuring and self-affirming. Yes, you can stay in the extreme comfort zone because you don’t have to leave it. You don’t haveto face other people or be confronted by things that make you second-guess your entire way of thinking. But I think you should. Not every moment of every day, because that gets tiring. But once in a while, definitely.
Now how does this all tie back to The Midnight Gospel?
Walking in Virtual Shoes
When we get deeper into his backstory, we find out that Clancy has been running away. He’s been refusing to face the relationships confronting him. Like his sister. Talking to her on the phone, she tells him he can’t just keep starting over without facing himself, and it leads him to an angry meltdown in the David episode.
If our worldviews are never challenged, if we are always in our comfort zone, then we never have a reason to turn outward. Because the default setting is to focus on ourselves.
But Clancy does encounter people who regularly challenge his worldview. Even if they’re created by a computer program. And he listens to them. Some more easily than others, but in every episode, eventually, he listens. And they, in turn, affect his emotions and changes the decisions he makes in life.
Again, this is nothing against the younger generations or against current technology. Because I think every generation is guilty of this: Retreating into a comfortable worldview where we don’t realise what other people go through, or don’t think that other people are capable of understanding us. It’s incredibly isolating. In the end, it leads to so much frustration and dissatisfaction, that when our bubble is even slightly threatened, we’re sent into an angry meltdown much like Clancy was.
So, I think it’s very poignant that at the end of every episode, Clancy always manages to take a shoe or two back with him, and these are what he keeps as souvenirs of his trip. This recurring image is significant.
There’s that idiom about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. Though I think it relates to The Midnight Gospel tangentially, I don’t think it’s exactly what the metaphor of the shoe in each episode means. Clancy doesn’t always take the shoes from the interviewee of the episode. Sometimes it’s just a random shoe he finds on the ground. Sometimes, he takes it from another character. In the last episode, the shoes were pretty much handed to him.
Therefore, I wouldn’t say that Clancy is walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. In fact, in every episode, Clancy remains distinctly Clancy. Each of his avatars have his same color scheme, his eyes, and even his signature hat. During the interviews, he interjects with his own opinions and experiences.
That’s the essence of active engagement with the world, including other people and the media we consume. We listen and then measure it against our own beliefs and values. We re-examine ourselves but that entails having a self to re-examine in the first place.
The shoes represent stepping, quite literally, outside your comfort zone. Even when we’re sitting at home or comfortably, we’ll probably be wearing clothes. But we don’t need to wear shoes if we don’t have to.
The meta is supported by Clancy’s character always presented as being barefoot. In his current lifestyle, he doesn’t need to interact with anyone else. He doesn’t need to do most things he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t need to challenge himself. But in the end, he chooses to, whether he realises or not. Just being open to what the world has to say, especially the people in it, is enough of a first step.
So, to me, the shoes represent having to make that conscious effort of having to put on shoes and go outside. It’s a decision to engage instead of disengaging and curling up inside yourself. You can’t just be thrust into that, or accidentally end up with shoes on and find yourself outside.
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If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy my other analyses in The Midnight Gospel playlist:
Интервью с Билл Гейтсом завершает наш месяц технологий, потому что как его не завершить, если не размышлениями о будущем и вообще, на что способно человечество? Вот, что Биллу есть сказать по этому поводу:
charitable: милосердный blint: (здесь) глупый, грубый человек polio: болезнь полиомиелит pick your brain: (здесь) устраивать опрос, спрашивать кого-то очень подробно handwriting:почерк multiple:несколько disrespectful:неуважительно tablet:планшет software:программа
Bold prediction to a worst-case scenario in the time of the Covid-19 where technology fails people and they reverse to basic instincts. This is what Ballard wrote in his amazing novel “Highrise” in 1975 after power went out in the fictional high-tech housing plex, while tenants slowly descended into chaos because they couldn’t live peacefully without electricity.
The story was adapted into the 2015 movie starring Tom Hiddleston along with Sienna Miller and Jeremy Irons. Humans have this connection to technology where, once missing, it brings to the surface the inability of society to adapt and to live in harmony. This can be described as the forfeit of people to take back certain tasks and responsibilities to their core, where too much has been delegated to automation to the point of loosing any ability to recuparate it.
Can we turn to candle-making or to plow and harvest fields solely using our memory and hands? Perhaps only a small percentage share of population can do that, wether by trade or through inner passion; however, we are confined to become hopeless whenever a fuse goes off for a few hours. A lot of faith and our modern existence has been placed on electricity with everything else that comes with. The generations born into the digital age have forgotten how to use cursive because they don-t write that much, they type and we cannot blame them.
Survival in case of major power failure is held by certain moral standards of avoiding descending into panic. Composure of the masses will be the hardest task, but it’s what will lead us to safety should the worst-case scenario happen leaving us without technology for weeks, if not months.
Now more than ever we can witness first-hand how global and linked information has become. With the ongoing spread of the Corona Virus we are witnessing this phenomenon where the sum of people, objects, places, has become the essence of modern times. From here we can see information moving and influencing in real-time those who are connected on the web without geo-limitations.
This virus has infected thousands of people from China to Europe while slowly creeping into North America. The pattern indicates the travel flow of people and goods being shipped from Asia, with China in the middle of a vast web of commercial routes across the globe. Now this COVID-19 disease has followed this very same pattern as airline destinations have become further apart, meaning passengers can directly arrive to places where before a stopover was needed.
From China to Europe through Iran, the Silk Road is still relevant today more than ever.
This translates into a faster spread of any disease as we grew more dependent from Asian markets to sustain western economies. COVID-19 is now affecting people’s lives and marketplaces on a global scale; something SARS failed to do back in 2003 because China wasn’t as influential as it today, but also because air routes were fewer and more limited than they are now. One important datum is the spread in Iran and neighboring countries, where from east to west the virus followed the ancient Silk Road to Europe.
Each day during these events dictated by the Corona Virus the movement of information and its influence can be directly seen. Beyond the traditional information medium there’s a whole realm of social platforms, where true and false data quickly spread to millions of users. We will see the law affecting our lives furthermore, governments will apply a soft and direct censorship in the near future to prevent the spread of false news; however, this will also impact the rest and content creators will have to deal with it on their own terms.
The relationship creates important data useful to understand behavior.
In terms of hyperconnectivity we can reference the virus map and see the network of data on a global scale. People are connected to objects and object to places. A person is sharing content through a smartphone that at the same time is providing geo-data to determine location. The sum of these three elements creates behaviors to explore and to exploit. Explore because we can refine information and use it to understand how people move, this can grant to act with better tools should the next endemic disease happen. Exploit because fear can be worked to push masses towards one direction instead of another, so we can predict shady uses of people’s reactions to affect events like government elections, markets, and the public opinion.
Augmented reality can display data in 3d providing more accurate predictions and visualization methods.
Through Internet Of Things (IOT) we have a large network of people, objects, places, and it is the next frontier of human and technological studies. Phones connected to tablets, sensors connected to computers, thermostats connected to smartphones, traffic lights connected to cars, and so on. Artificial intelligece can now extrapolate behevioral models to predict the future with more accuracy; therefore data can now indicate 3d models providing unprecedented levels of details. Imagine this technology becoming an essential tool to understand diseases’ patterns of their spreading, it would help contain and minimize fatalities reducing damages to this economy that today knows no boundaries.
News reliability in the internet age has been under the scrutiny with the increasing spread of data access especially through social platforms. User-created content is part of this phenomenon where source integrity has become questionable, distinctively in the wake of the weaponization of information through channels.
Lately the contradicting data over the COVID-19 outbreak has forged many questions over numbers, locations, and precautions. We had news China knew ahead of this threat but didn’t act properly, yet the fear of a global pandemic is quickly spreading through the media.
Wether it’s politics, economy, or the latest health news over the Corona virus, I’m finding difficult understanding the structure of the information. The news scenarios can at this point be in these conditions:
facts are being misrepresented by Chinese authorities;
western media is using information to gain leverage on China;
reality has countries unable to make sense of the situation of the pandemic.
All these scenarios might not just happen singularly and that would be worrisome; however, the product of the information in this age is the depth of confusion we are in that won’t allow us to see through anything. At this point what to believe: the Corona virus is manageable or data is faulty?
I’m getting newsfeed form expat aquaintances living in China how the western media is blowing numbers, and perhaps we know the story that selling newspapers copies and clickbaits is profitable for the media. Now we have little to no clues how warped the situation is because we are supposed ot believe the WHO’s data, but also the information coming from national sources across Europe.
Now I can ask myself if technology can come to the rescue and help us track the spread of the virus over the last two months. So far we know SARS in 2003 had a higher contagion effect and that at a certain point it was contained. Opposite is the scenario we have with the current health crisis from Asia where the issue of censorship in China might have played a key role. The spread of the Corona virus went under the radar until its reach went quasi global, landing as far as Italy and Egypt.
Northern Italy is in now on alert with major public events like the famous carnival of Venice cancelled. Schools, universities, and certain public places are shut down until further notice. Efforts to stop the spread of this virus are underway as Italy managed to isolate the disease and a vaccine is being developed across nations.
Information is so crucial that if China really did censor the news of the spread we might look at our second major alarm bell; the first being how this nation has officially become a playground for technology in developing a Big Brother state. So if information was withheld it’s certain Beijing understood the full value of manifacturing and distribuiting technology for the rest of the world.
I’m a little skeptic over the quantity and quality of data that could have easily gotten filtered through the Internet Of Things, and refined via artificial intelligence to better track the spread of the virus. We have all the available tools in 2020 to put to the test our technology and track better information of useful human behavior, helping us prevent worst scenario for the near future.
This translated in being able to harness what you want to tell and not to tell through the very own decives your country has been manufacturing to the rest of the world. But this tells me that China might actually have all the truth over this disease, feeding fake news to specific targets in order to manipulate the information flow and therefore be in full control of the situation.
Where are 3D TVs now? Some of them are resting unused inside people’s homes while others are left to the dust inside unknown warehouses around the globe. One thing sure is how this technology was just a fad for tech-gullible buyers who where to quick on the wallet.
But why did 3D TVs failed? They did because of their technological limitations,costs, and timing, but most importantly because of the physical limitations our bodies impose. This means there are certain conditions for which this technology did not account for despite being their primary target: the user.
The costs of a 3D television after 2010 would be in the four-digit bracket for the average consumer, an unfortunate expense as millions of people in north America just switched to HD TV sets to meet the latest cable and internet streaming standards.
Timing was also unfortunate as the shrinking of devices and increase in content availability meant people would spend less time at home, more on the go with their tablets and smartphone becoming increasingly powerful. It’s curious to see if any research was ever made by Samsung, Panasonic, LG, in terms of usability for the medium-short term of wearable techs such as the compulsory 3D glasses for the user to wear. Here I wrote about such technologies and their limitations.
The most important characteristic ignored by TV manufacturers was the user. It looks as if screens and 3d glasses were never considered to be properly developed for people, this because the body can tolerate so much external inputs before it starts reacting with different results. Think of you wearing boots all day and the relief when removing them at the end of the day.
Our sight depends upon the fragile organs eyes are. They already get stimulated constantly throughout the day with technology, now imagine stressing them further more for two or three hours at the time just to see approximate 3D figures out of a movie from the TV. This resulted in people ditching such high investment for the little outcome of entartainment and therefor a bad user experience..
3D television has stopped existing because there is no current technology that can properly display pictures beyond the flat condition of the screen. Yet it manages to influence this decade movie productions with great pictures like The AvengersandThe Hobbit, with their sequels offering a much viable narrative enclosed in the theater because that’s where proper movie experiences belong.
We are witnessing an importand change in the worldwide retail landscape. Online shopping platforms like Amazon and Aliexpress are the “west vs east” of the commercial frame, now their impact on international retail markets can be felt with slowdowns in North America as the consumers’ preferences have changed. This is happening because of poor retail growth and brick&mortar brands can no longer look the other way. Sears is gone, no more, because one CEO after the other did not have a clue how to handle a crisis of confidence the digital age brought in the last 15 years. So even large names were not spared from extintion, much like the big dinosaurs of the past, in a wave of major changes where the core principle of the consumer managed to switch so drastically in the last 10 years. Customers have based their shopping habits upon online reviews from others who already bought and tested items. The new approach method for buyers is to visit the mall on weekends scout their next purchase and then buying it online as soon as they got back home. Why? Because today’s shopping experience is not the lavish one of the 20th century where Baby Boomers and family could overspend their budget; plus, the global economy wasn’t as shaky as it is today. It’s sharp purchasing. Beside that, Millennials are working wages that forbid extras like car-ownership, let alone the cottage and the boat, these were investments that drove the economy of the second-half of the 20th century. And because of that the economy has been resenting it since 2008 (or perhaps 2001), where we witnessed the global financial meltdown. Now retail wants customers back, but it isn’t happening simply because wallets are empty and the new generations don’t want to drive minivans anymore, let alone an over inflated house in the suburbs. Retail could bounce back with a store experience to attract custumer and backed with an online presence worthy of the competitors. This translates into having consumers coming back to the physical store and enhence their shopping experience with the latest technologies such as holograms, augmented and virtual reality. Play first, pay later
We have machines around us and we’ve been having them for decades. Some brighter than others, while some brutal than most. Destruction has always been an option in human evolution and the yield of this tool is exponential.
Fearing a sentient machine is not as bad ad fearing a sentient machine with a gun. That’s what has surface in recent times in Russia when in 2017 a video of a fully-developed robot wielding two pistols made the news. Now the company behind this project is struggling to get parts amidst a boycott.
We can’t deny technology is close to deliver a human-like robot that will provide judgment upon people some day.
With major AI breakthrough in recent years we can guess where we are heading, following this deep white rabbit’s hole where soon enough powerful algorithms will be melded with powerful hardware. Yesterday bomb-delivering drones, today robots with guns, and for tomorrow the writing is on the wall. It’s no-secret there will be a major switch into the military defense programs of the future where human beings will cooperate with machines on the battlefront.
Although AI at the moment is in it’s infancy state, machines are learning our behavior and understanding how humanity works. We won’t have one entity made of a single AI, but rather different levels of sophistication that will includes distinguished thoughts and outcomes. Some levels of this intelligence will fulfill certain tasks while others will be bound onto resolving much bigger problems.
The law will be extended upon those subjects who are not biological, yet hold responsibilities upon their actions.
But what about accountability? Who do we blame for AI’s mistake and the aftermath? A few days agoUber was not found liable in the 2018 death of a pedestrian while testing one of their autonomous vehicle. We will likely risk of having a set of semi-sentient machines in the next 5-10 years representing a new facade of society, some sort of B-series citizen which will replace us into dangerous tasks while coexisting in our streets and eventually our lives.
In due course law-makers will have to take AI into account, but that means extending certain rights and duties over non-biological subjects. Perhaps it will create a separate class of individuals in our society much like Spielberg’s 2001 movie Artificial Intelligence, where organic Vs mechanic people will develop whichever dystopian society they can do best without wiping each others out in order to see the next dawn.
If yesterday the idea of North and South Korea coming together was something out of a wild fictional dream, today we can claim it’s a project with solid foundations. The two countries have now better chances of a sweeter future than a decade or so ago.
Now imagine Seoul and Pyongyang are part of the same borders in the next future; what is going to happen? There are great opportunities in the unification process, starting from the humanitarian side which will bring adequate infrastructure and well being to millions of people.
The other set of opportunities will come in the shape of commercial venues, where large Korean brands will have their say first. Samsung, LG, KIA, Hyundai, will be the very first brand to invade North Korea because the mobile and car industry are going to reshape the country.
Cellphones and cars are the two examples of units which have high scalability, thus they yield to large population chunks with great sale opportunities. Millions of North Koreans are ready to become the next market target of different corporations, starting from those in Seoul.
Here we will have to see how Apple reacts to this shift, but unless they anticipated a great deal of moves there’s the risk of manufacturing and sale opportunities being left out. This will seriously impact Apple’s hegemony in the years to come.
Pyongyang will become the new manufacturing territory to employ those who will build the next Korean technological wave, but also from other countries too. It will be the new labor capital taking high production volumes, directly competing with China.
At the same time China will evolve with new challenges. By the time North and South Korea will be one country again, things will be different in Beijing. China will replace their labor force with Artificial Intelligence governing robots, thus creating the next wave of ultra cheap labor.
All this will represent the Asian booming of the Industry 4.0 age, which will revolutionize the way we understand production, automation, and the future relations that will come with. An upcoming social, cultural, and economical shift is within reach and it has already happened.
Google has launched its Bulletin service allowing users to report local stories within a community level base. So far this service appears to be available on selected areas and through early access. This might open a whole new scenario where people will gain the ability to craft news stories regarding a well-defined geographical volume they dwell.
According to their official launch page the info goes:
Impactful: Bulletin helps you tell the stories that aren’t being told
Open: Bulletin stories are public and easy to discover: on Google search, through social networks, or via links sent by email and messaging apps
Effortless: No setup is required to create a story - all you need is a smartphone
This new reporting system will likely allow Google to understand more of the user movement in data sharing along with its behavior. From micro data production of the individual to the macro evolution of the information. The architecture of information is being constructed to understand how the single individual acts and reacts in its private environment, all the way to the local level with other peers.
This will grant a whole new level of understanding how society moves and communicates with the following:
news source- every user can provide a set of information package ranging from events happening within their geographical volumes. This could generate true sources but it will carry a steady stream of fake news;
user behavior- each person can broadcast movement, purchasing information, collateral data, that Google can use to its own advantage. This will generate new and updated profiles on what the user does inside a specific environment, thus more accurate details on all levels;
data- all in all the free usage of this services revers to the gathering, analysis, trading, selling, of the users’ profile and everything in it from Google.
Each smartphone with the outputting data that provides and with the addition to this new service, will grant Google a whole new architecture platform onto which extrapolate user behavior, financial data, and everything necessary to upgrade their information grip on the population.
