the Internet as we know it.
At the end of a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland, where his comments were webcast, he was asked for his
prediction on the future of the web. "I will answer very simply that
the Internet will disappear," Schmidt said.
"There will be so many IP addresses...so many devices, sensors, things
that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with that you
won't even sense it," he explained. "It will be part of your presence
all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic.
And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the
things going on in the room."
Concluded Schmidt: "A highly personalized, highly interactive and
very, very interesting world emerges."
The panel, entitled The Future of the Digital Economy, also featured
Facebook COOSheryl Sandbergand others.
Earlier in the debate, Schmidt discussed the issue of market
dominance. The European Union has been looking at Google's search
market dominance in a long-running antitrust case, and the European
parliament late last year even called for a breakup.
"You now see so many strong tech platforms coming, and you are seeing
a reordering and a future reordering of dominance or leaders or
whatever term you want to use because of the rise of the apps on the
smartphone," Schmidt said Thursday. "All bets are off at this point as
to what the smartphone app infrastructure is going to look like" as a
"whole new set" of players emerges to power smartphones, which are
nothing but super-computers, the Google chairman argued. "I view that
as a completely open market at this point."
Asked about his recent trip to North Korea, Schmidt said the country
has many Internet connections through data phones, but there is no
roaming and web usage is "heavily supervised." Schmidt said "it's very
much surveillance of use," which he said was not good for the country
and others.
Sandberg and Schmidt lauded the Internet as an important way to give
more people in the world a voice. Currently, only 40 percent of people
have Internet access, the Facebook COO said, adding that any growth in
reach helps extend people's voice and increase economic opportunity.
"I'm a huge optimist," she said about her outlook for the industry.
"Imagine what we can do" once the world gets to 50 percent, 60 percent
and more in terms of Internet penetration.
She cited women as being among the beneficiaries, saying the Internet
narrows divides.
Schmidt similarly said that broadband can address governance issues,
information needs, personal issues, women empowerment needs and
education issues. "The Internet is the greatest empowerment of
citizens ... in many years," he said. "Suddenly citizens have a voice,
they can be heard."
During another technology panel at the World Economic Forum on
Thursday, Yahoo CEOMarissa Mayer, Liberty Global CEOMike Friesand
others answered questions on the need to regulate privacy standards on
the Internet and for tech companies following the Snowden case, the
Sony hack and the like.
Mayer said that the personalized Internet "is a better Internet,"
emphasizing: "We don't sell your personal data ... We don't transfer
your personal data to third parties." She said users own their data
and need to have control, adding that people give up data to the
government for tax assessment, social services and other purposes.
Subscribers view billions of hours of content and generate billions of
clicks, but added that "today we do nothing." He explained: "We
generate zero revenue from all of that information." But he
acknowledged that big data was big business for a lot of people.
Both executives said transparency was important to make sure users
know privacy standards and the like.
Gunther Oettinger, a conservative German politician serving as the
European Union's commissioner for digital economy and society, said on
the panel that "we need a convincing global understanding, we need a
UN agency for data protection and security." Asked what form that
"understanding" should have, he said he was looking for "clear,
pragmatic, market-based regulation." Explained Oettinger: "It's a
public-private partnership."
--HollywoodNews
No comments:
Post a Comment