Friday, February 01, 2013

Eric Schmidt: The Next 5 Billion - Life in Our New Connected Age



Eric Schmidt Executive Chairman of Google sketches out a future world in which cyberterrorists are targeted by government drone strikes, online identities are taken hostage and held for ransom, and parents explain online privacy to their children long before the subject of sex.

Eric Schmidt also said that his recent trip to North Korea had shown that the population there lives in an "utter information blackout" – but that change was certain to come, as well as for the 5 billion people worldwide not yet connected to the internet, for whom connectivity would bring enormous benefits and transform their lives.

Speaking to an audience at Cambridge University, in the first of a number of speeches outlining his view of the technological future, Schmidt said that he thought change would come "slowly and incrementally" to North Korea as the use of mobile phones spread, and with it information. Google has already updated its maps of the country since Schmidt's visit using "citizen mappers" inputting information to its Mapmaker software.

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