We are complex beings and signs are emerging that some sections of society are concerned about areas of technological ‘advance’ in the area of privacy, writes Armin Derpmanns, general manager business development at Toshiba Electronics Europe.
We all focus so much on underlying technology these days that it is sometimes easy to forget that its ultimate users are human beings.
It is taken as read that faster performance, greater storage capacity, anywhere/anytime access, and intelligent interaction of services are all positive and should be welcomed by everyone. And, to a large extent, this is true.
However, people are complex beings and signs are emerging that some sections of society are concerned about areas of technological ‘advance’. One highly visible example of such concern is in the area of privacy.
Privacy concerns manifest themselves in a number of ways; most relate to the revelation of personal information without the consent of the owner. These breaches can be unintentional – such as the mistaken sharing of personal details due to an organisation’s IT failure, benign or malevolent – but also, and this is where unease is increasing most, intentional.
In a Cloud
To understand where the perceived threat is strongest we must look at the overarching trends of modern technology: Cloud data storage, social media, and online content consumption. The major players in these areas are all seeking to extend their presence from one segment into the others.
Welcoming users/customers into their warm embrace in order to sell more to them either directly or indirectly through sharing information about their preferences and buying habits with other organisations.
The resulting services offered – free online back up and storage, recommendations of items you may like based on your purchasing history or that of your friends, special offers on products in which you have shown a prior interest – are popular and prized by many.
But worries are being expressed that organisations have too much visibility of our interactions and preferences. And, so long as we communicate via the Cloud, this will continue.
NFC effect
One side effect of this situation is that gaps are opening up that can be exploited by a variety of new technologies – not everything is converging on a centralised, Cloud-based model. NFC, already widely used in public transit payment systems, is being rolled out within bank cards and in or on mobile handsets for localised electronic payments.
While the related backend systems are no doubt Cloud-based, the front-end transactional element is clearly not.
There is evidence to suggest that a significant proportion of the population that likes to share its photos, video and other rich media content either does not want to do this via the Cloud because of privacy concerns or is often unable to do so due to network constraints.
For example, although Wi-Fi is often claimed to be ubiquitous now it is generally behind a pay wall or security barrier away from users’ homes or offices; cellular data transfer can become expensive. It is also human nature to want to share material – whether recommendations or content – when physically meeting.
This situation paves the way for a technology such as TransferJet, the high-bandwidth, close-proximity data transfer protocol that enables large files to be transferred between devices in seconds simply by touch them together. The result could be that, even as the Internet commands more and more of our lives, old-fashioned direct person-to-person communication could be returning in a new form.
Source:
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2013/03/11/55729/people-will-communicate-directly-in-spite-of-the-cloud.htm
