TechPlus+ | Technology & Development Redux
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Data Center Centrality
Read more: Data Center CentralityRecent headlines have put the spotlight on Big Tech’s investment trends in data centers. While the gang of five has already spent $155 billion on data center expansion since January, the total annual amount for this year is expected to reach $365 billion. That is more than the nominal 2023 GDP of over 150 countries,…
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Laboring AI – II
Read more: Laboring AI – IIResearch on the labor impact of GPTs is mainly focused on advanced economies in the West. Implicitly, it is assumed that what thrives in the former should also blossom in all other nations, provided they have reached a certain level of development and have been able to actively integrate into the global economy. The rest…
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Laboring AI – I
Read more: Laboring AI – IThe sudden resurgence of AI in the early 2010s, riding on the coattails of newly developed and groundbreaking machine learning and deep learning algorithms, was accompanied by the emergence of seemingly endless “future of work” conversations and, eventually, heated debates . By the end of the decade, generating target listings by job and/or sector had…
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Free Market Dependency
Read more: Free Market DependencyI have previously argued that Big Tech companies with unbreakable ties to the real economy are more prone to incessant competition from both incumbents and non-incumbents. Apple and Amazon’s signature products are the best examples here. Take the iPhone. It not only has to deal with the Android caterpillar globally but also faces formidable competition…
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Sizing up Big Tech – VI
Read more: Sizing up Big Tech – VIWhile it may be convenient to categorize the five usual suspects under the Big Tech label, ignoring the differences between them, pointed out in previous posts, could lead to simplistic conclusions. Take the word “big.” How big is “big?” The most common parameter used to measure is market capitalization, which is consistently in the trillions of…
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Sizing up Big Tech – V
Read more: Sizing up Big Tech – VConnecting to the Internet in 1994, the year Amazon was founded, was certainly not a walk in the park. For starters, the number of access providers could be easily counted. Accessing the emerging network of networks from home required a computer, a modem, an RS-232 compatible cable, supporting software, and an additional phone line, depending…
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Sizing up Big Tech – IV
Read more: Sizing up Big Tech – IVOut of the five usual suspects frequently fingered as Big Tech gang members, Microsoft (MS) takes the top spot, time-wise. Indeed, the company turned 50 last April, beating Apple by almost one full year. Many will associate such advanced age with dinosaurs, especially if we use Internet time as a benchmark. However, MS shows no…
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Sizing up Big Tech – III
Read more: Sizing up Big Tech – IIIIn the early 1980s, when Apple was still an underdog facing stiff competition from larger and well-established tech companies, it masterfully used mass advertising to challenge their dominance. TV and paper news media were the only options available at the time. Perhaps Apple’s most famous ad was 1984, launched in 1983, announcing the upcoming Macintosh…
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Sizing up Big Tech – II
Read more: Sizing up Big Tech – IIAs the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) acknowledges, Google operates in various markets, including operating systems, devices, email, browsers, broadcasting, cloud services, mobile apps, advertising, and search. In some cases, such as search engines and mobile operating systems provided for “free,” the company has disproportionate world market shares (90 and 73 percent, respectively), thus attracting…
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Sizing up Big Tech
Read more: Sizing up Big TechHave you ever bought something from Google? Many will likely answer positively—perhaps a tablet or a phone, or possibly a subscription to YouTube or Google One. Back in the early 2000s, most would have responded negatively, though. At the time, the company was synonymous with robust and mostly accurate web searches, and no one was…
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Sandbox Quicksand
Read more: Sandbox QuicksandBreathtaking digital technology innovation has been a hallmark of the past 30 years, triggering dramatic, albeit not always beneficial, social change that hardly anyone could have predicted or even imagined. Unlike previous technological or industrial revolutions, digital innovation unfolds endlessly, reaching most corners of the globe at nearly the speed of light. Indeed, no country…
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Internet Roots
Read more: Internet RootsAn Intergalactic Computer Network (ICN). That was the first Internet Imaginary in the early 1960s, used to depict the endless possibilities of the then-emerging network of networks. The ICN Imaginary was thus born several years before the first four academic computer networks were interconnected in 1969, thanks to the pioneering groundwork of IPTO and the…
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Digitalizing Sovereignty – V
Read more: Digitalizing Sovereignty – VA recent blog tackles the issues surrounding Africa’s digital sovereignty. It first defines sovereignty as a country’s capacity to independently create, develop, and govern AI. However, the supreme adjective I previously highlighted is missing from this definition. At any rate, the authors rightly emphasize that sovereignty comprises technical and political issues. On the technical side,…
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Digitalizing Sovereignty – IV
Read more: Digitalizing Sovereignty – IVIn 2006, a British mathematician running a customer-centric data science company coined the phrase “data is the new oil.” At the time, the Open Data movement was taking its first baby steps, while the expected digital data tsunami was gathering steam expeditiously. The saying was meant to pinpoint that data, like oil, needs to be…
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Digitalizing Sovereignty – III
Read more: Digitalizing Sovereignty – IIILike governance, sovereignty has existed much longer than the modern digital universe. Thus, it has a rich history evolving over several centuries (see references below). Historical consensus indicates that Jean Bodin was its conceptual father in the late XVI Century when the scourge of religious wars was dominating Europe. Treaties such as the 1598 Edict…