Where Technology Will Take Us?

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Where Technology Will Take Us?

Vint Cerf Asks Web Geniuses Where Technology Will Take Us: 7 Exclusive Interviews
The Guardian asked Vint Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the Internet and current Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, to tell readers what the future holds.

Cerf interviews Chris DeWolfe (MySpace), Chad Hurley (YouTube), Maurice Levy (Publicis), Biz Stone (Twitter), Peter Norvig (Google) and more...

Their specialist fields represent what Cerf believes to be the most exciting areas of development on the web and in the world; notably Steven Huter and Adiel Akplogan, who have pioneered the internet infrastructure in Africa.

The first full internet connection to the African continent was established in Tunisia in October 1991. Over the next 15 years, the transition from store-and-forward email networks to full internet connectivity in capital cities all over Africa progressed steadily, with Eritrea being the last to join the global internet in November 2000.

To take full advantage of the power of the internet, African leaders must give rise to regulatory and political environments that remove cumbersome barriers...

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You Will Control 25% of Entertainment by 2012

A new study from Nokia predicts that by 2012 a quarter of all entertainment will be created, edited and shared within peer groups rather than coming out of traditional media.

The good news about this report is that much of the entertainment will be created and distributed on mobile phones. These are the perfect devices for capturing images and sounds on-the-fly and then editing the content with music and graphics. One person in a peer group may take the pictures, a second edit the sequence of pictures and a third add music before the production is sent to the group as entertainment.

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Voice-recognition system and real-time translator on a cellphone

NEC says it has created the world's first real-time translator on a cellphone, which can instantly turn Japanese travellers' words into English. One second after the phone hears speech in Japanese, the cellphone with the new technology shows the text on the screen. One second later, an English version appears.

The company made it possible by making the software, which includes a voice-recognition system and translation functions, compact enough to operate on a small microchip mounted in a cellphone, it said.

It is technically possible to make the English translation vocal but NEC is not considering the idea at the moment, according to NEC spokesman Mitsumasa Fukumoto.

"We would need to study how to recognise voices on the phone precisely. Another problem would be how the person on the other side of the line could know if his or her words are being translated correctly," he said.

It was not decided when the technology would be put into practical use, he said, adding NEC would keep pushing with the study to "realise a society in which anybody can communicate with anyone else anywhere anytime."

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