Research question - communication 2015

1. Are different technologies going to converge? (cable, wifi, Win Max,...)?

"What defines each decade is not a technology's invention, but rather a dramatic shift in price and performance that triggers a sudden burst in diffusion from lab to marketplace." Lunar accommodation is still at the pricey end of the market - and that is unlikely to change by 2020

3. Which trend can be identified in social/work behavior?

Two possible trends

1- People, mainly reach people, with easy access to technology will move out of the crowded cities preferring remote and quite area. In this case technology would change the concept of proximity not only between families and community but also within family members

 a. The concept of family will be far from the “two parents 
two children” of the last century. the relationship between adults will be 
chosen rather than based on economic necessity
 b. Webcams might by 2020 be playing the role the telephone did in the 20th 
century, a vital communication link for families who might live hundreds of 
miles apart.

2- Creation of gated communities and “compounds where the knowledge and scientific workers live and work, guarded by armed security men. Outside, visible from the trains and toll-ways that link the Compounds, are the Pleeblands, where people toil, consume and exist in a state of under-educated chronic insecurity. As the hero's father explains to him, it is like a throwback to the days of castles and moated manor houses” Technology will be used to reinforce closed community inaccessible networks and to link the different communities

6. which will be the impact of security on communication? Will communication be put under control? Be nationalized?

Global network is becoming an essential commodity in everyday life. Everybody will be able to access and use. Its absence will be a disaster: A broad-ranging survey of technology leaders, scholars, industry officials, and interested members of the public finds that most experts expect attacks on the network infrastructure in the coming decade. Some argue that serious assaults on the internet infrastructure will become a regular part of life.

a) Nearly every piece of legislation in the past five years has gone too far."

b) The possibility of today's anti-crime legislation becoming the planks of tomorrow's repressive state increases with every rise in global tension

c) Simon Davies of Privacy International has an equally bleak take on the state of civil liberties: "The default has clearly shifted from privacy to surveillance. Almost all large government projects attempt to compromise the right of privacy. The proclaimed need for the protection of children and the fight against terrorism has often been shamelessly used as the pretext for privacy invasion."

d) All that technology will be at the service of the government, and by 2020 its use will force us to consider the delicate balance between the freedom of the individual and intrusion into our daily lives by the state.

Over the next 15 years, a growing range of actors, including terrorists, may acquire and develop capabilities to conduct both physical and cyber attacks against nodes of the world’s information infrastructure, including the Internet, telecommunications networks, and computer systems that control critical industrial processes such as electricity grids, refineries, and flood control mechanisms. Terrorists already have specified the US information infrastructure as a target and currently are capable of physical attacks that would cause at least brief, isolated disruptions. The ability to respond to such attacks will require critical technology to close the gap between attacker and defender. A key cyber battlefield of the future will be the information on computer systems themselves, which is far more valuable and vulnerable than physical systems. New technologies on the horizon provide capabilities for accessing data, either through wireless intercept, intrusion into Internet-connected systems, or through direct access by insiders.

10. Will working practice change?

As you get back to your desk a red-tinged internal company email message flashes on your computer screen. "Analysis of your urine deposit at 11.24am shows that you have consumed excessive alcohol in the past 24 hours. This is the fourth time in the past month that urine sampling has registered you at excess of 140mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. This is a formal company notice. You must immediately register for the company alcohol abuse management scheme. Failure to do so will result in the termination of your contract."

A Japanese company has already developed a toilet - targeted for use in large companies - that can analyse whether an employee has recently used illegal recreational drugs such as cocaine or heroin.