Will technology spark the next economic crisis?

In previous decades it was the stock market crisis that brought the economy to its knees. More recently we had the sub prime mortgage doing the same to the economy. It may well be the technology in the next two decades that could spur a recession.
The social media space, internet, digitisation, virtual conferences and many more innovations are spreading at a breakneck pace. We are so smitten by latest applications that its uptake seems almost reckless. We are just as hopelessly enthusiastic as we were when there was first the widespread opportunity of dealing in stocks and shares and later on with irresistible lines credit for housing from banks.
While individuals like innovation there seems to be some caution regarding allowing "technology democracy" within companies as the research by Economist Intelligence Unit suggests. The fear is that too much of technology freedom will descend into chaos. And experts acknowledge these risks and advice companies to adopt measures for preventing the chaos.
But web stands for integrating everything. What is professional can be deemed personal and vice-versa in the social networking space. Human resource professionals are vetting people after browsing through their digital personality, professionals are finding business sensitive information on Twitter pages and journalists can find scoops and leads from inadvertent comments and feedbacks on the social media websites.
The technology stocks are going bullish and each day, the companies are unveiling massive plans of digitisation and launching online solutions, video-on-demand, state of art file-sharing, personal communication devices and applications that will empower you with real-time information updates.
While web-conferencing helps us cut our carbon footprint and mobile devices are useful to "connect on the move", too much technology dependence not just means greater information sharing, it also reassures technology providers into supplying us with the services to cater to our demands. We don't seem to give a moment's thought to the possibility of a shocking revelation of some technology gone terribly wrong. What would happen if we were told one Monday morning that all the information on Google's cloud has been corrupted or stolen?
by Archana Venkatraman

Publishers showing spine in the ebook battle

Credit where credit is due. The publishing sector deserves a pat on its back for steering the future of the books.
Acknowledging the role that ebooks and ebook readers would play within the sector, the industry is not just keeping pace with the latest technology but is, in fact, a step ahead- forming alliances, consolidating and providing users a peek into the future.
Unlike the music industry, which was forced to evolve following innovations such as the MP3s, iPods and even Spotify that changed the consumption of music, publishers are bracing themselves with new technologies and organisations such as British Library is enabling consumers "to get to grips" with the hi-tech devices that could change the way we read.
Google Books, Google's online library has agreed to add one million books for free to Coolerbooks.com, for Interead's ebook reader Cool-ER.
The search giant, along with Sony, is also supporting the open EPUB- publishing format that can conform to any e-reader, liberating the market and challenging Amazon's model of ebooks compatible only with its own reader Kindle.
While on one hand, content-access is becoming sophisticated, Harry Potter publisher has given content too, a 21st century makeover. Bloomsbury Library Online has virtual bookshelves that allows one to access books via public libraries or through internet enabled mobile phones.
However, a lot still needs to be tackled- getting more publishers publish books in ebook-friendly formats, making the devices more affordable and user-friendly, digitising old books in ebook compatible formats and even collaborating with communication devices manufacturers.
Typical problems that challenge the music industry today are online piracy and file sharing issues. The issues are so deep-rooted that it requires government intervention and severe clampdown to restrict the damage.
We need due diligence process to combat similar file-sharing issues, legal compliances and piracy within the ebook market, its impact on book-sellers and physical newspapers, otherwise well-begun would remain half done.
By Archana Venkatraman