Slide 3: (Looking forward)
Turning to the future Negroponte expressed his belief in a number of technologies including software defined radio (SDR) combined with Meta standards. He believes that the future lies in configuring the radio capabilities and settings for a device over the air using technology known as software defined radio in order to make it possible for any device to be used on any spectrum band. Borrowing from the web he stated that some form of Meta tagging could be used to manage this process and the interaction with the network.
Turning to the current structure for the sale of airtime and subscriptions on GSM networks he launched an attack on mobile operators telling them that they should learn from Swiss watch maker Swatch. Challenging the audience to tell him what the name Swatch is derived from he informed them that rather than being “Swiss Watch” (as many people believe it to be) it was in fact “Second Watch.” The founder of Swatch (Nicolas Hayek) had understood the need to break out of the paradigm of people only having one watch. He urged network operators to offer multiple SIM cards on the same number and bill stating that people should have “10, 15,….20 connected devices.” He also raised a laugh from the audience when he said that moving your number from one device to another should “not be a fingernail breaking experience” – alluding to the difficulty around removing a SIM card from a mobile phone.
He went on to describe how he believes the mobile industry is “at the foothills” of a peer to peer world and that the world will evolve into a place where services are centred around “peer to peer” everything.
Finally he addressed the issue of ever changing form factors for mobile phones. This gave him an opportunity to discuss one of the topics which is clearly very close to his heart (based on this presentations and discussions prior to his speech). He is clearly frustrated by the relentless drive by manufacturers to keep adding features to devices (both phones and laptops) to compensate for the natural tendency for average selling prices (ASPs) to drop. Referring specifically to laptops he described “a natural fattening process” resulting in software getting so fat that its performance is detrimentally affected. He stated that this fattening process meant that “the fat lady can’t sing anymore.” He went on to state that new, high spec laptops (such as the latest dual core models) “are slower than they were three years” citing that you constantly have to struggle to turn them off and turning them on takes so long its painful. His concluding thoughts on this theme were that “technology obesity does not work” and that “adding features is unsustainable.”
Slide 3: (Looking forward)
Turning to the future Negroponte expressed his belief in a number of technologies including software defined radio (SDR) combined with Meta standards. He believes that the future lies in configuring the radio capabilities and settings for a device over the air using technology known as software defined radio in order to make it possible for any device to be used on any spectrum band. Borrowing from the web he stated that some form of Meta tagging could be used to manage this process and the interaction with the network.
Turning to the current structure for the sale of airtime and subscriptions on GSM networks he launched an attack on mobile operators telling them that they should learn from Swiss watch maker Swatch. Challenging the audience to tell him what the name Swatch is derived from he informed them that rather than being “Swiss Watch” (as many people believe it to be) it was in fact “Second Watch.” The founder of Swatch (Nicolas Hayek) had understood the need to break out of the paradigm of people only having one watch. He urged network operators to offer multiple SIM cards on the same number and bill stating that people should have “10, 15,….20 connected devices.” He also raised a laugh from the audience when he said that moving your number from one device to another should “not be a fingernail breaking experience” – alluding to the difficulty around removing a SIM card from a mobile phone.
He went on to describe how he believes the mobile industry is “at the foothills” of a peer to peer world and that the world will evolve into a place where services are centred around “peer to peer” everything.
Finally he addressed the issue of ever changing form factors for mobile phones. This gave him an opportunity to discuss one of the topics which is clearly very close to his heart (based on this presentations and discussions prior to his speech). He is clearly frustrated by the relentless drive by manufacturers to keep adding features to devices (both phones and laptops) to compensate for the natural tendency for average selling prices (ASPs) to drop. Referring specifically to laptops he described “a natural fattening process” resulting in software getting so fat that its performance is detrimentally affected. He stated that this fattening process meant that “the fat lady can’t sing anymore.” He went on to state that new, high spec laptops (such as the latest dual core models) “are slower than they were three years” citing that you constantly have to struggle to turn them off and turning them on takes so long its painful. His concluding thoughts on this theme were that “technology obesity does not work” and that “adding features is unsustainable.”