climate and comms

We are well into what Mary Meeker calls the next major technology cycle, the mobile Internet.  ( Mary Meeker Internet Trends 2010 ) The drivers are adoption of 3G, social networking, video, VoIP, and amazing mobile devices.   Global 3G penetration has hit the 20% sweet spot and is now mainstream.   Social networking platforms like Facebook already are winning a rising share of communications through mobile phones, while video on mobile is likely to follow its surge on the desktop and stimulate explosive growth of mobile data usage.  VoIP leader Skype already has more registered users than any global carrier, while the network effects from Apple’s iPhone / iTouch ecosystem have stimulated probably the fastest user growth in the history of consumer technology .  Only Exxon is now  worth more than Apple!! S o we have massive mobile growth accompanied by other technological developments such as NFC ( Near Field Communications) will become increasingly ...

  In 1880 Africa remained relatively untouched by Europeans.   Over the next two decades the Continent was carved up by the Colonial powers in their urgent quest for raw materials to feed the post-Industrial boom.  The parallel scramble over the next 2 years (this is Internet time !) will be for security assets.   The large firms such as IBM, Intel and HP (read: the Colonialists) will start to acquire smaller security firms such as Sophos ( raw materials).  It has already started playing out this year with BAE announcing its acquisition of Norkom for E217m ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/marketforceslive/2011/jan/14/baesystems?CMP=twt_gu ) Among the growing threats facing many organizations this year is the advanced persistent threat, continual patterns of digital assaults aimed at government and business IT systems to steal intelligence and trade secrets, often backed by foreign governments or their supporters.  Or perhaps to put it anothe...

Many of you have probably wondered about what Live Ensure is all about.  Well there is no more powerful medium than multi-media.  So watch this video ... let me know what you think 

Are we seeing some kind of a shift in society?  I believe we are witnessing a new era of ‘activism’ – student /societal/ corporate. Students in the UK have taken to the streets in (sometimes) violent protests against the impending imposition of university tuition fees.  Governments are acting in unison against the ‘threat’ posed by Wikileaks.   But ‘hacktivists’ are rising up in protest against them and the corporations (Amazon/MasterCard/Visa ) that are doing their bidding. Consumers span of attention continue to fall as 30 second advertisements are cut down even shorter.  Our children engage in electronic media multi-tasking gaming / watching TV / surfing the web / texting / talking on the mobile and so on.  Their brains are being hardwired into a new mode of operation with boredom thresholds at an absolute minimum. So.  Are we all becoming hedonists – needing a short term fix ?   Have we lost the ability to plan ahead and see the con...

Why all the fuss ? Why the ‘outrage’ at this ‘threat to national security’ ?   Are we really worried that nuclear war is going to break out because of these ‘dirty’ secrets getting out.  As if the North Koreans are going to up the ante any more than their mock charge of last week because of the abuse and scorn heaped upon them by US Diplomats.  ? !    Come on. To me the irony of this bluster is that it is (largely) from the right wing establishment in the US - calling it treason!     Any party that parades a half wit like Palin as a presidential hopeful hardly holds any moral high ground when it comes to protecting the USA.   Her appointment as the ‘leader of the free World’ will be enough to send any level headed American ( let alone any one of their Allies ) into a panicky tailspin at the thought of what she may stumble into ( by accident or design) . So how did these documents get out there?   Poor security.  Plain and simple....

“ Halt who goes there ?  “  The traditional challenge of a guard watching over the entrance to a castle / city / camp / fortress since time immemorial.   The visitor wishing to gain access,  be they friend or foe,  then had to engage in a process of convincing the guard of the validity of his credentials.  In other words - identification and authentication.    I sn’t it amazing how little things have changed?     Today these challenges happen all the time.  When you log on to you computer / to your corporate network / to your email account / to your online bank / to your social network site and so on,  you are required to identify yourself.    Have you considered just how many times you do this every day.   ?  Most of the time this happens seamlessly under the hood without you even be conscious of it happening.    When you log on to your email account – you don’t re-enter your password ever...

Today marks the beginning of the Get Safe Online week   ( http://www.getsafeonline.org ) here in the UK.      Last month was Global Cyber Security month.   This celebration of the ‘evil’ Internet - is becoming a ghoulish fetish – an obsession with the dark side of the cyber world, this dangerous underworld populated by zombies and Zeus mutants.    During every breathing moment this new ‘world’ we have created – the Internet / Cyberspace / the Web – morphs and grows and its tentacles reach into every nook and cranny of our lives.    You would have to be a Buddhist monk in the remote mountains of Bhutan not to have been influenced by the spread of this techno organism and its cancerous viruses….    Or is this all scaremongering? How bad is it really?   Well first we have to acknowledge that it is a reality   – the Internet that is -   and everything that goes with it – both good and bad.     Th...