Better and different -- convergence and divergence
http://www.globalchange.com Divergence or convergence? Consumer focus, IT systems, software and mobile phones. Multiple devices and systems. Multiple capabilities and features. Innovation, divergence, new products and services. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon.

Banks will become phone companies and telecom companies will become banks. Mobile payment systems, micropayments, mobile phone credit card transactions and loans. Economic impact of remittances from foreign workers using SMS credit to avoid foreign exchange transaction costs. How biometrics fingerprint technology will allow large mobile phone payments. Commissions and interest charges on loans. Impact of revenues from American Express, Visa, Delta, Access, Mastercard moving to mobile phone transactions. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon.

Bottom of pyramid and how most mobile phone sales in future will be to people on low incomes. Impact of SMS on personal and business life. Changes in consumer behaviour. Lecture for Dimension Data by Dr Patrick Dixon, Futurist, author Futurewise (more)

Disney has partnered with O2 now owned by Telefonica in Spain, to offer phones aimed at limiting what children can watch, for how long, and what they can spend.  They will be able to access content with all Disney’s best-loved characters.

66% of 10-15 year olds already have a mobile in the UK and there are already concerns about the potential longer term health risks of heavy use by children.  These have been added to by UK government health warnings about possible dangers to younger children from exposure to electromagnetic radiation.

At the same time the UK government recently announced a ban on new housing being built within a certain distance of overhead high voltage power cables after yet more studies suggesting a low-level cancer risk.

You can be sure that if more definite links emerge between mobile phone use and health damage such as cancer, that companies like Disney may come under a lot of pressure.

I wonder who is carrying their re-insurance risk?

The fact is that the known health risks are absolutely minimal and it is unlikely that new reports will change that dramatically.  But as we have seen the future is not about science nor technology:  it is about emotion.  There have already been a whole series of reports suggesting that high dose exposure to mobile phone radiation can affect living tissue, and it would not take many more to trigger parental concerns and even perhaps a class action suit (even if unlikely to succeed).

For more see:

 

http://www.globalchange.com/radiation.htm