The Economist has a special section this week on mobile phone technology in emerging markets. The section includes articles on trends in mobile phone ownership, the role mobile phones are playing in economic development, and new uses for the technology. Mobile phones in developing countries are now used to provide farmers with agricultural information, remind patients to take their meds, gather health information in the field, and transfer money. Jeffrey Sachs has called mobile phones “the single most transformative tool for development.” [%comments]
Can Mobile Phones Change the World?
TAGS: Technology, The Economist
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Transfer money via mobile phone ? Did they lost their common sense to make payments with such unsecured device ?
they already have. keeping lines of communication open 24/7 wherever, whenever.
This article UNDERSTATES the importance. But I think the big deal is political and social.
The genius who said..let’s put a camera on a phone should get the Nobel peace prize. Because now, in a peaceful demonstration in some faraway place, when soldiers shoot at a protester it is caught on someones cellcam and immediately can be broadcast around the world. Cellphones, cell cams, and such technology makes governments and others behave respectably now.
It’s also the single most threatening tool for intrusion into the Good Life.
I don’t have a mobile phone, and I know my wired days are numbered. I just saw a television news segment that stated the telephone companies no longer even consider land lines viable and they won’t support them.
Over 60 and alone but not lonely, I will begin now to find the ways to use a mobile for safety and security. I am NOT a (full-flegded) Luddite or anti-technology; just happily solitary.
If Freak has come across any guides for us, I’d be happy to know about them. (Don’t call me.) And there’s always LifeAlert, or other such things you wear around your neck for emergencies.
Am I the only one who believes that, at least in the West, life was better before mobile phones. Better driving, quieter bathrooms and so on.
Yes!!! It’s the best thing that could be happening. Mobile phones in emerging markets benefits the economy and the people. This new type of mobile technology falls under the category of physical capital. At first one might think that mobile technology might replace human capital which will result economic disaster. The truth is that it won’t replace human capital. In fact it will create more jobs since the demand for phones will increase and the more service from households will be demanded from part of mobile technology firms. Also this mobile technology might result more efficient to produce something than human capital. For instance in agriculture, mobile technology might organize the farm more efficient than human capital. Then if you picture the farms PPF (production possibility frontier) it will result a bow outward meaning it’s production of goods will be more efficient. Therefore in my opinion I think mobile technology will result in the best interest for everybody including households and firms.
Until we can cure the next AIDS by playing Tetris on our phones, there is still much work to be done. We should not settle for anything less than our best.
When I visited the Philippines in the 60s (complements USN), and then again on my dime seeing Peace Corps son in the 90s, I was impressed by two things. Trikes (motorcycle taxis) and cell phones. Their system is really better than the US now. Texting was very inexpensive, and talking more expensive, trikes affordable. NO ONE was isolated any more. The magnitude of the leap in communications and transportation at affordable costs was phenomenal. When the kids were worried that nothing was getting better I felt happy to say how much better things looked than 25 years earlier.