Sam is on target regarding his "dark horse". What one needs to understand is that there are many "dark horses" running in this field. This includes all the military applications which are not only environmentally hardened, but are use hardened for combat situations, including nuclear warfare. We are also not considering active devices- those with their own intelligence for decision making and taking action on their own. These are automated processors in industrial settings or simple robots which now can vacuum one's floor without being preprogrammed- intelligent robotics.
What we are not considering is the rate of technology transfer and to whom and at what cost. As one individual has commented on this list, the economic divide is structural and not soluble by a digital system. Selling the technical solution seems like arguing that these technologies are hammers and the structual issues can be settled by transforming them into "nails". We can measure the number of computers or bits/capita available to varous populations and we can measure income/capita and other issues. And, since neoclassical economics is all about numbers and nothing else, that can't be measured, counts, we have the defined, "digital divide" and NGO's can scatter chips around the world, and academics can measure varous factors, all is well while the infrastructure remains. Let's bring on the "universal translators" and the voice to digital conversion systems and let's harden them and connect them to WiFi systems. Let's get universal ID cards with biometrics on board. Or better, imbed an RFID tag and transmitter in homo sapiens- if the infratructure is flawed, then the victory may be Pyrric. thoughts? tom abeles ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
