3)3G and Mobile Advertising

3G technology will enable advertisers to send more sophisticated and customized permission-based advertisements to their target audience’s mobile devices. This will be an improvement from current SMS. There will be a convergence between internet and wireless technology as target audience can request that more product information be sent as email. It is unlikely that these services will provide a sustainable advantage over long run but they will shape brand perception of an operator at initial stage of introduction of wireless Internet services.

However, with rise of m-commerce, ‘business-webs ’will become even more powerful as every customer will become linked into web. According to Keith Shank of Ericsson, wireline operators will have to find a way to integrate with wireless by providing a package of combined service capabilities and transparent coverage. Demanding consumers will want convergence of wireline, wireless and data services.

4)From E-Learning to M-Learning

The future holds a lot of promise for E-Learning Industry. Martyn Sloman, author of The e-learning revolution has been quoted as saying "The pace of change in global economy and advances in communications technology means that there is no debate about whether e-learning is future or not. It clearly is. Latest assessments indicate that competitive organisations will soon be delivering up to a fifth of their training through Internet, intranets or web."

With greater acceptance of e-learning, mobile learning (m-learning) will be thrive. An example of how 3G can power m-learning is when a student who may be late for a lecture can view entire proceedings through screen of a mobile device. It is also not far-fetched idea that same student can even sit for a test by entering a password through mobile device.

Challenges Ahead

Privacy is a huge question as in case of m-commerce, each of us will leave a trail of “digital crumbs”. With increasing likelihood of a convergence between net and wireless technology in many facets of social and business interactions, each of us will leave a mirror image of ourselves as we travel around.

Another problem that is highlighted by Eric Schonfeld of eCompany is getting developers interested in creating applications that 3G phones can run. Currently developers tend to ignore markets with fewer than 1 million customers and concurrently, demanding customers insist that 3G phones should have lots of new applications to hold their attention.

Lastly, as sourced from University of California’s Berkeley School of Information Management and System (SIMS) report “How Much Information?” Professors Hal Varian and Peter Lyman analysed industry and governmental reports for production of information in terms of paper, film, optical and magnetic data. Among some of their findings:

§The direct accessible “surface” Web consists of about 2.5bn documents and is growing at a rate of 7.3m pages per day.

§Counting “surface” Web with “deep” Web of connected databases, intranet sites and dynamic pages, there are about 550bn documents, and 95% is publicly accessible.

These findings show that we are already taking in a lot of information even before introduction of wireless communication through 3G. Will there be further information overload or will mobile devices help us manage our daily affairs better?

The concluding 2 sections will provide some pointers:

1)Towards An Information Society

In Foresight Project, an initiative led by New Zealand’s Ministry of Research, Science and Technology has stated that in an information society, individuals who are well-educated, self-motivated, and linked into information networks, are most likely to live prosperous and fulfilling lives. Enterprises that are attuned to their customers’ requirements, employ educated workers, encourage innovation through their workplace organization and, and know more and learn faster than their competitors, are most likely to succeed and grow.

Reinforcing this point, according to Peter Drucker, there is discipline of innovation. This is translated into having a clear mission and defining measurement of results. In event that there are no results, organization should abandon idea and then continue to seek for new and unique opportunities.

2)Future Challenges of a Knowledge-Economy

According to Dr Johari Mat, Secretary General Ministry of Education (Malaysia) at First SEAMEO Education Congress, a Knowledge Economy Index developed using selected key elements required to drive a K-economy such as computer infrastructure, infrastructure, education and training, research and development and technology shows that most countries in this region lag behind developed and newly industrialized countries in terms of readiness to become a K-economy. For instance, Knowledge Economy Index is 3877 for Singapore, 2460 for Malaysia, 1705 for Indonesia, and 1648 for Thailand while Index is 6650 for USA, 5908 for Japan, 4901 for Australia, 4686 for UK, and 3912 for Korea, thus, to make a transition to K-economy, countries in this region face daunting task of putting in place and strengthening core elements required to support K-economy. Efforts need to be accelerated in priority areas of human resource development, science and technology, research and development (R&D), ICT, and lifelong learning.

To conclude, 3G is definitely here to stay despite early glitches. The opportunity of being truly wireless and mobile is just too enticing.

Then comes issue of speed of data retrievals in connection to bandwidth.

The snail's pace of 28.8, 33.6 and 56 kbps modems simply cannot deliver amount of kilobytes that streaming media demands. This situation provided Vendors who are well aware of problems to intelligently devise ways to manage network resources for users faced with streaming media flood. From snail- blazing 28.8 dial-up connections, there came much advancement. The 33.6 and 56K variants came out as minor upgrades to their 28.8 sibling. This development could be hardly felt by users so they had to come out of that medium of connection—the analog modem. Then came what they would call second generation of connection devices designed to give subscribers a leap from 28.8 kbps to a stunning speed of up to 1.5 mbps. What could these technical numbers signify then? Well, it means that new connection speeds that subscribers could now enjoy could reach up to 20 or even 50 times faster than when they were using 56K connection speed.

The efforts to battle bandwidth problems have produced good results especially in subduing qualms about supporting streaming media applications. By this, followed advent of streaming technologies to deliver audio, video and animation into websites, which is considered an appropriate response to this TV generation's insatiable demands.

Now that streaming media is gaining much recognition in Internet, websites are now transforming plain information exchange in Internet to ultimate sensory experience. And it is consumers benefiting from these technologies. Entertainment companies have extended their broadcasts to net thus expanding markets across barriers of traditional transmitters to global community in Internet. Through innovations that supported streaming media, thousands of audio and video information are now available on Internet. Only users' individual preferences are considered their limit. Thanks to many innovations and new gizmos that pop out every minute that ticks. Five to seven years ago, streaming media was just a young idea being cooked up on Internet and now, attention and respect for it is increasing. People find more reasons on why these streaming media will slowly shape and influence way they see and access information.