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The
Drawbacks Of New Technology
By Bill Thompson |
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Coming up with ideas for
new digital products and services is hardly difficult in this world
of rapid technological development and increasing access to computers
and the network.
Anyone with a vague grasp of the capabilities of internet-connected
devices should be able to think of two or three innovations over
an overpriced latte, in their nearest 'third space' coffee shop.
Having ideas may be easy, but deciding which to pursue and turning
them into reality is difficult work with a low likelihood of success.
There's a lot of support for entrepreneurs in business, and the
recent announcement that 35 UK companies will be going to the South
by South-West interactive conference in Austin, Texas as part of
government-sponsored 'Digital Mission' is a good demonstration of
how to help growing companies.
Non-commercial ventures need help too, and it can be hard to find.
Yet when it's available it can make a real difference, as I found
out at a conference in Cambridge last week.
Two years ago, the EPSRC - one of the UK research funding agencies
- offered money to four development projects that were concerned
with bridging the global digital divide, and last week they held
a review meeting where all the project teams could come together
and talk about their experiences to date.
Because I'd been involved in the very early stages of the project,
I took the opportunity to find out how the ideas that we'd discussed
so long ago were progressing.
Storybank is helping rural communities in India to create and share
audiovisual material, the Village e-science project helps farmers
in sub-Saharan Africa develop their agricultural practices, and
the rural e-services work offers support for Indian villagers to
help design ICT systems that serve their needs. |
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The fourth project,
Fair Tracing, is trying to make it possible for consumers
to find out more about Fair Trade goods they buy, perhaps
even being able to tell precisely who made them.
The meeting also provided an opportunity for the project teams
to hear from some of those working at the sharp end of ICT
use in development, like Paula Kotzé from the Meraka
Institute and Gary Marsden from the University of Cape Town.
Marsden was the highlight of the meeting for me, partly because
of his engaging style but also because he is able to blend
an astute understanding of what technology can do with a profoundly
empathetic appreciation of the needs of real people in their
daily lives.
One of his recent projects is the 'Big Board', a large flat-panel
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in a community centre in a Kenyan town.
The screen has several images on it arranged in a grid, and it is
used as way to transfer information to and from mobile phones in
an area of the world where high network charges mean that downloading
content is too expensive and access to PCs and the internet is too
limited to be an option.
Big Board uses the combination of Bluetooth and a cameraphone to
help people get data onto their mobiles. A user takes a photo of
the item they are interested in and then uses Bluetooth to send
it back to the computer that is driving the board.
The image is analysed, and if it is recognised then the relevant
data is sent back to the phone - on the demonstration system, available
options included music, images and text.
It's not fast, but it works. And it is a two-way service, as users
can register with the board and send their own content for other
people to download.
In the trial the two most popular types of user-generated content
were completely unexpected. Young people used the board to upload
T-shirt designs which a local printer then downloaded and manufactured,
and local choirs used it to swap recordings of their gospel choir
performances.
As Marsden pointed out, these were activities which came from the
community and served its real needs, but they could only emerge
because the technology was not constrained.
The Big Board allowed things to happen, without limiting what those
things were, so much so that Marsden finished his talk by admitting
that he has given up trying to predict the ways new tools will be
used by communities.
He believes evaluating technology projects is almost impossible,
because there are so many different factors to take into account,
and often the really significant outcomes are not ones that were
anticipated.
The Big Board is a fascinating idea, although Marsden doubts it
would catch on in the West. He reckons the downloads take too long
and in our busy and media-saturated lives, few of us would bother
to wait for the latest Beyonce song to be sent to a phone via Bluetooth.
However, it also raises a few questions. Some users were blocked
because they were using the board to share pornography, but it's
not clear who should make decisions about what content is appropriate
on a community service like this.
And what happens if new tools or services disrupt established community
practices, as with the use of mobile phones to allow young men and
women to contact each other freely in cultures that normally segregate
the sexes?
These are not exclusively issues that affect development projects,
of course. And I doubt that many of the technology entrepreneurs
at Digital Mission will sit down and consider the wider social impact
of their new products or services even when, like the microprocessor
or the mobile phone, they threaten to overthrow the established
order.
But in this increasingly connected world, we are, at some point,
going to have to discuss the ethical dimension of our innovations.
Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator
on the BBC World Service programme, Digital Planet.
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