In response to my post of the Chattanooga editorial, someone wrote to me that he thought that virtual communications would make physical interaction even more important. I won’t go into the whole argument here, but note that this is more sophisticated than the simple comparison of virtual vs. physical interactions that many people have made.
Nevertheless, I did think that it deserved a response and here it is:
I think the Internet in its current form (texting, email, social media, etc.) is still an immature form of communications. So the crux of the matter is not so much whether the current Internet will change how people interact, but how the ubiquitous video communications of the future will affect behavior. Read More »
Did you know there’s a correlation between a country’s coffee consumption and its appetite for technology? Here’s a follow-up to an earlier blog I posted on my Top 5 predictions for 2011 which range from network economics to books and eReaders to coffee drinking.
Many of you shared some great insights and I’m eager to hear more. What trends do you see coming in your crystal ball?
“In multicultural societies the notion of “foreign” is more complex. For many in the UK, news about Pakistan is home news. International and domestic news agendas have merged to a significant degree as we grapple with common issues such as climate change, migration or global trade,” Richard Sambrook, former director of BBC News and the World Service and global vice-chairman and chief content officer for PR firm Edelman.
With the election season behind us, as a nation it’s time we come together and quickly address the serious challenges facing the U.S. economy and American workers. Our number-one goal must be to restore confidence in our economy and put people back to work.
As a U.S.-based multinational company, Cisco is committed to the continued economic growth and technological leadership of the United States. Given that it is the world’s largest economy, the United States must continue to drive global economic stability through policies that create jobs, promote innovation and foster new opportunities at home and abroad. If we don’t, we run the risk of being left behind. Just this week, a China-based company claims to have developed the fastest supercomputer in the world. This kind of innovation has previously been a hallmark of the United States—a leadership position created by commitment and investment from both government and the private sector. This country must have an environment where innovation and investment is encouraged and rewarded.
Currently, however, U.S. tax policy does the opposite. Incremental tax rates as high as 35% on money made overseas discourages companies such as Cisco from bringing back these resources and investing them at home – whether to create new jobs, boost R&D spending, or return value to shareholders. This high taxation of repatriated foreign earnings is in marked contrast to the tax practices of almost all of the world’s major economies—Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Australia, Canada, Russia, and the Netherlands, to name a few.
Broadband is a term that has been around for years and is admittedly overused. What some refer to as “broadband” is really more of just a step up from narrowband…call it “slightly wider narrowband” if you will. As many long-time readers of SP360 know, at Cisco, we’ve been a big proponent of having higher broadband standards and classifications since consumers, businesses, and governments alike stand to benefit. It’s not enough to just get marginally faster email when most of the rest of the world is focused on video and other advanced applications which require not just bandwidth but intelligence as well.
While there are many studies that chart overall broadband penetration, or the percentage of a population that receives broadband (by whatever definition may be used), we realized a few years ago that there wasn’t a study that focused on broadband “Quality” (i.e. what that said broadband can actually do). To that end, Cisco searched around and found interest in an effort from the Saïd Business School of Oxford University and the University of Oviedo’s Department of Applied Economics that we agreed to sponsor. The effort, called the Broadband Quality Study, or BQS, is now in its third year with the latest results just released.
So what’s the news this year compared to last year or in 2008 when the study debuted? While the BQS, which uses the data from 40 million real-life broadband quality tests conducted in 72 countries around the globe between May-June of 2010, gives us many new insights and surprises every year, I would say the real standout result this year is the speed at which countries have been able to become broadband leaders in just a few years. While we have expected this trend in the past, the three years of data to draw on, the BQS only now really proves it: Read More »
