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6 Billion Connected (a post Digital Divide narrative) Stuart Gannes Digital Vision Program Stanford University FDIS Conference July 1, 2008

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The future is already here, its just not evenly distributed. -William Gibson, 1998 Hint: Look to the developing world for innovation.

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Two scenarios

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Top down Telephone wires and radio unite to make neighbors of nations. - AT&T Lobby NY, 1932

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Bottoms up, sort of Half the worlds population has a cell phone 80% of world population within reach of cellular signal Estimate: 5 Billion connected by 2015

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Personal mobility: The killer app

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Global connectivity Mobile subscription growth: 39% annually in Africa, and 28% in Asia between 2005-2007. India and China alone added 154 million and 143 million new subscribers during this period.

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Mobile devices: Talk is cheap 294.3m handsets/quarter 3.3 million/day! Mostly low cost ~$40 today More than dozen vendors Prepaid phones dominate world-wide No billing relationship to provider Buy SIM card out of vending machine

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Not talking is cheaper! From calling to non-calling If you are going to meet with someone they might say: Ill do a missed call when I get there. SMS: At first just a way to save money when communicating Now: The biggest revolution in the language, ever. Spain: More phones (50m) than people (44m)

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(((o_o))) Not writing is easier

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Mcommerce is faster

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Money travels wider

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Historical caveat - or precedent http://youtube.com/watch?v=AhsSgcsTMd4

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New mobile apps From communicating (one to one by voice, and text) to Broadcast SMS, Twitter From entertainment (consuming media, games) to User generated content, social networks From information (news, sports weather alerts) to Maps, recommendations: Wisdom of crowds Commerce: From purchasing (goods, services) to Minutes as currency

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Mobile devices wannabe computers From communication platforms to communications-enhanced application platforms

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But not personal computers! Platforms + mobile twist: New silicon, OS New add-ons New form factor New I/O Apps different Interaction with cloud different Different display and keyboard Battery constraints matter

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Early metadata apps Berkeley Traffic Modeling Tracked 100 drivers with GPS-equipped phones. Traffic speeds computed based on locations, System predicts the onset of traffic interruptions far more effectively than current traffic systems (which cost millions) by using an infrastructure based on people, their mobiles and movements. MIT Reality Mining The collection of machine-sensed environmental data pertaining to human social behavior: work location, time and network usage, etc. correlates with productivity. With just a cell phone, you can go into organizations and find out how happy and how productive people are, which is really pretty amazing. --Sandy Pentland MIT

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Mobile computing platform will

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thrive on data, and Mobile devices record reality and upload info to networks Reality recognizable by a human Audio, photo, video Reality recognizable by a computer GPS Accelerometers, motion sensors Compass Temperature, barometric pressure (altitude), CO2

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attract developers, and Mainframes - IBM PCs - Microsoft/Intel Mobile computing contenders Microsoft/Windows Mobile Google/Android Nokia/Symbian RIM Apple Winner creates/owns virtuous cycle

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address human needs Innovation despite constraints Bottoms up, entrepreneurial innovation New business models Carriers? Advertisers? Media? New concerns Security Re-identification: Relating a person to a trail of seemingly anonymous and homogenous data left across different locations Computer virus Mob behavior 6 Billion connections evenly distributed

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Thanks http://wordle.net