Technology Transforms Our Lives
I was asked by Wes Curtis to make a presentation at the Utah Rural Summit last Friday in Cedar City on how advanced technology is transforming our lives. I noted how it has transformed my own life. That very morning I had to produce UPD sitting in my car with my laptop at 5:30 a.m. outside The Grind coffee shop (it was closed, but its wireless Internet access was still working) on Cedar City’s Main Street because the Internet service in my motel was dead.
I have produced UPD from dozens of different locations, including both coasts (San Diego, Washington, D.C.), a cabin in the Uinta Mountains, and on the remote east side of Zion National Park – anywhere I can get an Internet connection.
The technology allows those who assist me to e-mail their contributions to me, which I then put together into sections and e-mail them to yet another associate who does the coding and sends it out to more than 7,000 subscribers. All of us can work in our underwear from home, of course (except when I’m at The Grind coffee shop).
Contrast that with a political newsletter called PowerBase I produced some 15 years ago. It was so labor intensive that I could produce only one or two editions a month. I had to write the copy, paste up the pages, and take them to a printer who shot negatives and created printing plates. The pages were run on a printing press, then collated by hand, sorted by zip code and taken to the Post Office for mailing. It was a time-consuming, expensive effort and I had to charge some $300 a year for a subscription and I only had about 300 subscribers.
Today we produce UPD five days a week in our spare time, it’s free, and we send to more than 7,000 subscribers. And it’s more comprehensive and useful.
Technology has had a similar impact on many other jobs and professions.
An even bigger revolution will occur when ultra-broadband, the sort offered by fiber-to-the-home projects like UTOPIA and iProvo, is available to most everyone. At that point, audio and video on the Internet will become ubiquitous. We’ll take broadcast-quality video for granted just like we do text today. The world’s biggest Internet and telecommunications companies are placing thousands of television shows, movies, documentaries, video training modules, etc., on Internet servers for quick and easy download, on demand, for those who have the necessary bandwidth. Ordinary Web sites will extensively use audio and video.
In addition, Web 2.0 services, including on-line word processing, spreadsheets and databases, will become viable and millions of people will use them. Using an on-line word processing program from Google will be just as fast and convenient as using Microsoft Word on your hard drive. We will see an entirely new and transformative Internet when most people have access to mega-broadband.
Blog Watch
Reach Upward says the GOP's domination of Utah politics can be traced in part to a shared Republican and Mormon belief in American exceptionalism (see also here and here)... Utah Conservative makes some '06 election predictions... At SouthernUtahBlog, Gloria Bertram defends the Leavitt family's charitable foundations... SLCSpin says: "Sunday's [Pignanelli & Webb column] discusses the 'street buzz' around the upcoming special session. Well, there is no street buzz. It's about taxes. No one is talking about it. But if they were, I bet the street buzz would be something along the lines of, 'this special session is simply a gift to lawmakers facing re-election'" (see also here)... At Plato's Cave, George Pyle says: "Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon was a no-show for Saturday's star-studded groundbreaking for the Real Salt Lake stadium in Sandy. But it's not like he missed anything ... [J]ust about the time that Mayors Rocky Anderson and Tom Dolan and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. were having their pictures taken with global superstar David Beckham, Corroon was having his picture taken with the most important soccer players in the world -- his children, who were wrapping up their season in a county parks and rec league that plays at the University of Utah's Spence Eccles Fieldhouse. I'd say the guy has his priorities in order."
-- Compiled by Golden Webb
Washington Watch
Bennett Bill Analyzed
Article looks at Sen. Bob Bennett's Data Security Act of 2006, which "would create a uniform, national standard for protecting sensitive consumer information and for notifying consumers whose security and privacy have been breached" (The Green Sheet).
UDOT Open House
The Utah Department of Transportation will hold a public open house today at 4:30 pm at Woods Cross Elementary School to discuss proposed transportation improvements in the S.R. 68 (500 South and Redwood Road) corridor in Davis County. For more info, click here. |
