Monday, September 07, 2009
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Another thought for those of you who like spotting trends and ways in
which the changing technological environment can have a huge impact on
firms.
In 1995, two researchers at the Harvard Business School invented a new term: “
disruptive technology”.
This is an innovation that meets the needs of a small segment of
consumers better than the existing technology. Once a niche is
established, the product can develop, become cheaper and eventually
sweep away its rivals. Their problem is whether they should ignore the
threat or switch to the new system.
The obvious example is the digital camera, which came from nowhere as
an expensive and inferior alternative to conventional cameras. But,
you could look at a picture immediately after taking it and download an
image onto a computer to use or share. Within about a decade you would
struggle to buy a new camera that uses film.
The Economist is asking a ‘thought experiment’ this week. Could the battery powered car be the new digital camera? First, the negatives:
Electric cars are expensive
They have a limited range
They take a few hours to recharge
But on the other hand:
Motor manufacturers are under huge pressure to become ‘greener’
Batteries are getting better and most car journeys are short anyway
Once bought, the car would be much cheaper to run
Electric cars have better acceleration
That’s were cars like the Tesla roadster come in (at a cool £74,000,
pictured below). It’s clearly a niche product, but niche markets are
the classic way in for a disruptive technology. Tesla’s next vehicle,
the Model S, is a more mainstream (though £30,000) family car.
You’ve heard of the Toyota Prius and watch out for the GM Ampera next
year. They mix an engine with batteries. Is this the beginning of a
great disruption? It certainly hasn’t been a quiet time for the motor
manufacturers recently…
A lot of people, nations, and ethnic groups exist in our world. There
are also a lot of languages. To make communication processes easier,
people decided to make one of the languages international. Officially,
English is an international language. But it is not a true international
language. There are a lot of people in our world who do not know even
one word in English! The Internet and computers can help in solving this
problem. Now there are a lot of innovations in digital language
translation which can help us to be closer to each other. The AltaVista
Translation can help you in translating from other languages, and it is
really simple to use. The Alta Vista is one of the most powerful
translators, and it is free for all users. You can also use the
GlobalLink Comprende. It translates by pasting text, and also
accommodates Web sites by dynamically translating the HTML and
displaying it on your browser. This translator is also free for users.
So, different translators can help people around the world be closer to
each other, and it disposes all barriers between different people from
different countries with different languages.
There are a lot of advantages in using computers for sure, but very
often people do not notice how they are losing track of time sitting
behind the monitors. Everybody pretends that it is natural in a century
of an intellectually developed world, but actually it is already a
problem of addiction. People mostly use computers for entertainment, and
computer games together with video games have the most destructive
effect on people’s minds. 
Children
playing computer games injure their health through lack of sleep,
eyestrain, headache, lack of exercising, and cutting themselves from the
live communication with other children. For grown – ups, playing
computer and video games may lead to bad relationships with family and
spending money in vain, because very often games require buying some
special features etc. So, we can make an assumption that computer and
video games can be addictive, expensive, can hurt relationships, cut you from the real world. People should know limits in using technological devices.
I don’t know, maybe it is natural for people of the 21st
century like how it was natural for people of the Middle Ages to burn
witches. Maybe we should take it for granted and do not think about
“ifs.” I definitely am sure that people shouldn’t forget about their
roots, about nature, about being strong and independent: to use their
brain more often than a flesh drive, to read books instead of playing
computer games, to communicate alive instead of using artificial means
of communication.
