Planck Foundation




GLOBAL FUTURE ANALYSIS


TAILWINDS | NEW DIGITAL DEVELOPMENTS


The creation of new digital standard/formats has giving new possibilities. PDF (Portable File Format) of Adobe has driven enormously the online/offline publication of leaflets and books. With one simple action they were fully 1:1 digitalized without any changes in the layout and ready for internet distribution. Adobe has always distribute freely their own PDF viewer (Acrobat Reader) in their own website and in third party distributions (like by Google). After search engines also start to index PDF files, the number of PDF files on the world increased even more. PDF has killed the reduced the volume of the printing industry severely. Flash (these days also Adobe) is also a huge technological platform. Flash needs a web browser (like Internet Explorer) plug-in. A browser plug-in is an automatically installation after user approval request by the first time visiting a website with (for the Flash plug-in) Flash content on it. After the plug-in is installed graphically website's becomes accessible and that by high speed. It combines text, graphics and video on websites, giving them the possibility to go multimedia. YouTube is an example of a Flash driven site. Flash also makes client/server applications possible: displaying dynamical server data on screens based on user live choices. Ajax is a text based protocol for client/server technology. In email POP3 became IMAP (database driven mail storage), making mail more location independent. Address lists became LDAP. LDAP became ActiveDirectory of Microsoft and its (better) competitor E-Dir of Novell (former name NDS). Remote Desktop of Microsoft created online desktop environments. Novell NAL (Novell Application Launching) makes application roll-out complete virtual and easy/lowcost. The combination of E-Dir(NDS)/NAL and Remote Desktop makes ICT complete location independent and virtual/manageable against lowest cost. New PC deployment models only use the OS (Operating System), screen, keyboard, CPU and memory of a computer. There are no local settings, everything is feed from server environments. The most simple to roll-out location less office environment is logmein.com: just work on the office desktop as you're there. An offline example or exponent of this development is the USB stick with build-in OSes like U3. No more carrying around with notebooks in the future. Just your login (mostly supported by a digital file located key on your USB stick or -very bad development- in RFID in your body). But XML is the hugest development in information communication between computers. XML is the technology to displays parts of several data streams of several servers all around the world in one screen (or put it in an other file). Travel sites with live choices depend almost completely on XML. Book online an airplane ticket and you use XML. But XML goes further. XML offers completely virtual data. Also in the office. The new Word and the new OpenText (open source version of Word) are both completely XML designed. The possibilities of XML in information processes are beyond expectation. Here's a completely new world to discover in efficiency. See everything as a white paper and put there information blocks that can dig/display other information data. XML gives a complete redesign of ICT information architecture. All these new developments has one common characteristic: they facilitate information 'normading', integrated sources, blends, choices into new virtual/actual data for displaying, without any location dependency. All these new digital developments reduce the need for being in a common/dedicated office severely. The make commuting a waste of time. Just work at home: the boss can control by webcam and keyboard logging, or (more effective) by production levels. Or just go to a local shared office building to your reserved or 'just take a free one you like' work desk and visit the office of your company only on special locations. Daily commuting is not cost effective possible in times of PeakOil. These developments are the glue between the (on cheap oil build) pre-PeakOil city focused economy and the (to expensive oil adjusted) post-PeakOil suburb focused economy.


Author: Gijs Graafland


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