climate and comms

Surely this has got to be the obvious question in light of the tectonic shifts reshaping the Maghreb? Is the end game (of this social media phenomenon),  not the demise of the last autocratic regime of any substance ?   ( there are others that will go – but are they as important ? No.  ) There are so many factors at play in the next scene of this incredible drama.   Saudi Arabia has made an offer to buy Facebook  for the ‘princely’ sum of $150bn and hence remove any threat it may pose to stirring unrest in the country.  (  http://abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=228583 ) ( BIG JOKE !!!)  Seems like an expensive mistake by King Abdullah if Zuckerburg and Co are foolish enough to be bamboozled by Goldman Sachs into accepting the offer.    If he thinks that FB is the only way that revolutions are coordinated then he is being badly advised. You only have to read Bernard Henri Levy’s excellent analysis of what transpired in Egypt leading up to the uprising to understand the extent of t

What is mobile commerce you may well ask?   Well mobile payments comprise two categories – 1) payments for digital (virtual) goods usually done online and 2)  payments for physical goods usually done at a POS.   The latter usually being of larger transaction value.   So  when will we use our mobiles (in any real number) to make these day to day payments and also use them for online banking ?    My view is that this will be driven by both;  1) the adoption of  technologies like NFC by the handset manufacturers and the POS manufacturers and the merchants;  and 2)  the acceptance by users of these new technologies .    I suspect that the latter will take longer  - as people are naturally cautious about adopting new  technologies particularly when money is involved. The major handset manufacturers have started building NFC chips into their handsets as the GSMA have finalized the specification for NFC on GSM phones.   Apple recently ‘leaked’ the news that the iPhone 5 will be NFC enable

So last year Intel splash out almost $8bn on (one of their largest ever acquisitions) on   McAfee  in their quest to keep abreast of the rapidly moving Internet security market.    One of their motivations was : “ But Intel will take it one step further. The McAfee deal will see the integration of security into hardware, into the chips powering much of our computer-driven world. It also bolsters Intel's attempts to become more than a chip maker as it develops its own consumer devices and offering of IT services . “   (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11025866) And yet today they announce : “ Phishers are getting so good and so numerous that even the most technically adept of online bankers should think twice before typing in that password. Even if it's a legit site, databases can be infiltrated and passwords can be cracked. Time for something more, then. Intel is working on it, teaming up with Symantec and Vasco on what's being broadly termed Identity Protection Tec

Those of us living in the ‘West’ have watched with utter amazement at the developments in North Africa and the Middle East over the last 6 weeks.   The subject of :  - many a dinner conversation,  a chat at the water cooler, in the coffee shop or even an exchange of e-mails – was the resilience, the fortitude and the patience of the Egyptian people who for 30 years have suffered under a dictatorship (that most of us were oblivious to) and following Tunisia - realized that their future lay in their own hands.  And they grasped the nettle with incredible courage.  What are the lessons we learn from their actions ?   First and foremost we need to understand that we don’t actually know or understand just how the majority of our fellow global citizens actually live their lives.   That the political systems in most Arab states are not Western liberal democracies – that political control is wielded by a small elite who rule by fiat and the co-option of one or other of the security servic