Headline, April06, 2013

!WOW! : '''TOO MOD TO MEASURE'''

Indeed, said Intels Dr Andy Groove  ''The economics of our industry only work if we have a e large number of users demanding our services......we need to be relentless in our efforts to increase the number of users and different uses of our technology.''

And then Bill Gates, just so cheerfully admits, that the success of Cybernetic economy depends crucially upon, 'total participation' in a digitized and fully networked landscape whose ''pervasiveness'' is part of the design. '''Those who choose to disconnect will automatically be marginalized.'''

And once upon a time, there was this Human Genome Project, and mirrored in the world of bio-engineering. In 1980, the US granted a patent for a microbe capable of digesting oil. So tell me,  -but, is it ethically acceptable for a profit-seeking enterprise to patent a naturally occurring plant extract that cures cold sores and warts? Or indeed any element of nature that has been modified by a reshuffling of a DNA which has freely evolved over the millennia in a shared space?

And, and where such resources have hitherto been regarded to be the ''common heritage'' of mankind?  So, so very obviously, the very essence of nature itself is being reconceived  in Informational Terms; at the same time, regulatory policies are rendering this new territory open to legal exploitation. Outriders into this new marketing frontier -all pharmaceutical and biotech industries, together with their political proteges who granted that first 1980 patent on life  -argue that patent protection is required to stimulate costly research and development. 

Dr Jonas Edward Salk invented the ''Polio Vaccine'' and was rightly honored for the work he did to relieve the suffering of humankind. Following his breakthrough, he was asked in a Television interview as to who would actually own the drug?

Dr Salk replied, ''Well, the people, I should say: There is no patent. COULD YOU PATENT THE SUN?''

And our spending is predictably irrational. Last year more than $7 billion was spent on virtual goods. In one game, Project Entropia, a pixellated asteriod was sold for £398,000 of real money. Why? Because our online reputation matters to us  -and buying zeroes and ones on Farmville enhances status among other players.

They other truth is that Freemium works. It's no accident that so many apps are free: behavioural experiments prove that even a penny is a serious impediment to purchase. But once that free game of sports-tracking tool is ''ours'' and an extension of our identity, we typically over value its relative importance. That's why we are easily persuaded to spend cash inside an app, or to ''upgrade'' to a paid for version. Ker-ching.

Somewhat wiser now, I find that the business of Software is growing exceedingly difficult. In one splendid article the author rightly argues, that Right from the GET GO it is just so hard to get the consumers to pay a living wage for software applications.''

That's true! That's so very True!

So how to go forward?

Read every Steve Jobs interview and profile you can find and study his wisdom. From his obsessive concern with user experience and simplicity in design. See if you can get inside his mind and translate the approach that made him an icon to range of other industries.

!WOW! is being built in his image! But ''Speed Trap'' is what we must avoid.

With respectful and loving dedication to all the students of the world and even more so, to all the ones who stood up and made the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless possible.

Alas, the true test of a great student!

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless