Archive for the 'High Tech & Media' Category

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The future of Apple’s leadership

Published on January 25, 2011 in High Tech & Media and International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , .

For many people, Apple would not be Apple without Steven P. Jobs. The sudden decision by the company’s chief executive to take a medical leave for the third time in less than a decade raises anxieties about the leadership of the company he helped found more than three decades ago.

It also puts the spotlight again on several senior executives who have been helping Mr. Jobs run the company, in particular Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer, who will take over day-to-day operations during Mr. Jobs’s leave [Source].

“The company could not thrive if Steve didn’t have an extremely talented team around him,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School who has studied the technology industry for decades. “But you can’t replace Steve on some levels.”

“The person who can keep the trains running on time is a scarce commodity, but not as rare as someone who can do breakthrough innovation,” said Michael Useem, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the director of its Center for Leadership and Change Management.

No one expects Apple to suffer in the short term, as the company has a long product cycle. But some raise questions as to what will happen over the long term if Mr. Jobs does not return.

“The problem, really at the core,” he said, “is that Steve Jobs’s inspiration is irreplaceable.”

[Source]

A Google Mobile Payment Service?

Published on January 4, 2011 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Google is reportedly working on a new near field communication [NFC]-based mobile payment service that would allow individuals to easily pay for products just by tapping their smartphones against a special terminal at checkout.

The information comes from Bloomberg Businessweek, who cites “two people familiar with the plans.” The sources indicate that the service could become available as soon as this year. Smartphones would be required to be at least 10cm away from the register in order to exchange payment information [Source].

Already, several companies are looking to offer NFC-based mobile payment services. For instance, Verizon Wireless in partnership with AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA Inc. announced a joint-venture in November of 2010, which seeks to create a mobile commerce network called Isis. The service is expected to debut sometime in early 2012.

Other companies looking to create NFC-based mobile payment services of their own include Visa, Ebay and PayPal, and others.

Read another article here: Mobile phone will change the world.

Israel and the Innovative Impulse

Published on December 21, 2010 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Despite its small size and geopolitical isolation, Israel has developed a global reputation for its cutting-edge high-tech industry.

Knowledge @ Wharton’s special report on Israel explores the drivers behind Israel’s innovative impulse, looks at the partnerships Israeli firms have forged with U.S. companies and the reasons why the Israeli venture capital business is undergoing a painful period of adjustment [Source].

Silicon Roundabout

Published on November 28, 2010 in Global Strategy, High Tech & Media and International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

London’s high-tech start-ups: A patch of east London has quickly become a world-class technology hub. Last.fm, a music website and Silicon Roundabout’s biggest success so far, was bought by CBS Interactive, an American company, for £140m ($280m) in 2007.

Silicon Roundabout’s firms are generally small-to-medium sized and highly specialised. One makes software for the fashion industry; another runs an online dictionary. There is a hotel-comparison website, a firm specialising in 3D and interactive content, and several digital-design firms with their own niches.

Measured by the concentration of technology firms and the availability of generous and informed investors, California’s Silicon Valley is still in a league of its own. But in the second division of hubs, this chunk of east London is near the top, along with the likes of Boston and Tel Aviv.

Silicon Roundabout emerged without government support, or even direct links with universities, should pique the interest of countries that have tried to cultivate technology hubs without the same success [Source].

The Web Is Reborn (HTML 5)

Published on November 6, 2010 in High Tech & Media and Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The last decade expanded what we could do online, but the Web’s basic programming couldn’t keep up. That threatened to fracture the world’s greatest innovation engine—until a small group of Web rivals (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) joined forces to save it.

The central goal of HTML5 is to give websites the chance to expand beyond pages and into programs. For instance, the language will have tags for video and audio, which should dramatically streamline the way the Web handles multimedia: it will be as easy for a Web developer to incorporate a film clip or a song as it is to place text and images.

In some ways, HTML5 is taking the best of how the Web works and making it standard. For instance, today Gmail lets you take a file from a computer desktop and instantly attach it to an e-mail by dragging it into the browser window [Source].

One of the most illustrative applications of HTML5 is “The Wilderness Downtown,” an interactive video that the Canadian band Arcade Fire unveiled in September through a collaboration with Google.

2010 Young Innovators Under 35

Published on October 24, 2010 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: , .

MIT Technology Review’s annual selection of the world’s top innovators under the age of 35.

Since 1999, the editors of Technology Review have honored the young innovators whose inventions and research we find most exciting; today that collection is the TR35, a list of technologists and scientists, all under the age of 35. Their work–spanning medicine, computing, communications, electronics, nanotechnology, and more–is changing our world.

Find the entire list of ideas and detailed profiles here.
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Solar Power Business Heats Up: Enter GE

Published on October 13, 2010 in Greentech, High Tech & Media and International Business. 0 Comments Tags: .

Years spent honing manufacturing techniques under Jack Welch will come in handy as Tom Tiller boosts output at Abound Solar.

Watch out, solar manufacturers: GE may be about to take over your turf. The corporate giant, which has already carved out a spot as one of the world’s leading wind turbine suppliers, announced this week that it is moving into the thin film solar business.

GE is manufacturing cadmium telluride thin film panels, which puts it in direct competition with First Solar, the only other major company to focus on the material. It will be a fierce battle. First Solar is the world’s largest thin-film solar manufacturer, and one of the biggest solar manufacturers overall.

Most solar panels convert sunlight into electricity using silicon-based photovoltaic cells. Abound Solar, formerly known as AVA Solar, uses a less costly cadmium-telluride thin-film process developed by W. S. Sampath, one of its founders, while teaching at Colorado State University [Source 1] [Source 2] [Source 3].

7 Trends to Watch

Published on October 5, 2010 in High Tech & Media and Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: .

7 Trends to Watch, In An Age of Info Overload. Information is now the most abundant commodity on earth. These are strange times — not just for us citizens, but for all the corporate citizens that employ us, feed us, and work the engine that makes the world go round. So here are seven home truths to help keep things in perspective [Source].

1. People Crave Certainty
2. “Branded Content” Is a Dangerous Road — Drive Responsibly
3. Bet on Humans over Technology
4. If You Have Nothing to Say, Don’t. No, Really
5. Privacy Is Becoming Pivotal — Take a Stand
6. Information Works for You, Not the Other Way Round
7. Empower Your Intrapreneurs

The Future of the Internet

Published on September 4, 2010 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The internet has been a great unifier of people, companies and online networks. Powerful forces are threatening to balkanise it.

The first internet boom, a decade and a half ago, resembled a religious movement. Omnipresent cyber-gurus, often framed by colourful PowerPoint presentations reminiscent of stained glass, prophesied a digital paradise in which not only would commerce be frictionless and growth exponential, but democracy would be direct and the nation-state would no longer exist.

The internet is too important for governments to ignore. They are increasingly finding ways to enforce their laws in the digital realm. The most prominent is China’s “great firewall”. The Chinese authorities are using the same technology that companies use to stop employees accessing particular websites and online services.

It should come as no surprise that the internet is being pulled apart on every level. “While technology can gravely wound governments, it rarely kills them,” Debora Spar, president of Barnard College at Columbia University, wrote several years ago in her book, “Ruling the Waves”. “This was all inevitable,” argues Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, under the headline “The Web is Dead” in the September issue of the magazine. “A technology is invented, it spreads, a thousand flowers bloom, and then someone finds a way to own it, locking out others.”

[Source]

Intel Acquires New Capabilities

Published on September 1, 2010 in Global Strategy and High Tech & Media. 1 Comment Tags: , .

Over the last two weeks Intel has bought the wireless business of Infineon for $1.4 billion and McAfee for $7.68 billion, as well as the cable modem business of Texas Instruments for an undisclosed price.

Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel, noted that more and more devices were connecting to the Internet, and said the wireless connectivity was a sector where the company saw “growth potential.” Furthermore, Intel CEO Paul Otellini lays out the rationale for this deal in a press release:

Intel’s goal is to expand its mobile and embedded product offerings to support additional customers and market segments, including smartphones, tablets, netbooks, notebooks, and embedded computing devices. Through this effort, Intel will pair WLS’s best-in-class cellular technology with its core strengths to enable the delivery of low-power, Intel-based platforms that combine its applications processor with an expanded portfolio of wireless options—bringing together Intel’s leadership in Wi-Fi and WiMAX with WLS’s leadership in 2G and 3G, and a combined path to accelerate 4G LTE.”

Source.