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- THE FRIDAY LETTER -
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from Gilder Publishing,
for friends and subscribers)
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| http://www.gilder.com/ | Issue 323.0/January 11,
2008
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HEADLINES:
- The Week / The World at Our Fingertips (Telecosm Video)
- Friday Feature / Paul McWilliams: Core Predictions
- Friday Blogger Bonus / Bruce Chapman: Black Eye for
Polls
- Readings /
The Week / The World at Our Fingertips (Telecosm Video)
Steve Forbes, speaking
at the 11th Annual Gilder/Forbes Telecosm Conference:
This is going to sound a little strange, especially after the apocalyptic
global warming discussions that when on last night, but when historians look
back on this period, I think they are going to say that this was a golden age.
When you live through these periods, it’s never “golden” because you have to
get up in the morning and pull yourself together. You have kids, teenagers,
governments…to deal with. But, let’s just step back and see where we are at
today.
It is a most remarkable
period. Since 9-11, even though we live in a world where there are some very
real problems, very real violence, very real terrorist networks and some very
bad rogue players out there, the amazing thing is that the global economy has
grown, in real terms, over 30%. There has never been a period of time in human
history where so many people have advanced so quickly, in so many parts of the
world, as have in recent years.
We all know about India and
China; it is absolutely phenomenal. There are hundreds of millions of people
now striving to get into the middle class. Central and Eastern Europe are
forcing Western Europe to make changes it never would have made, like cutting
corporate tax rates. There’s good things happening in Latin America; Columbia
even. Parts of Africa are showing signs of life…
When you put it all together
this is about as good as it gets in terms of people continuing to advance
forward, despite the drawbacks of human nature.
And, the American economy gets no respect! If you look at the last four years,
the growth of the American economy alone exceeds the entire output of China….
View the complete video: http://www.discovery.org/v/28
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talented, tech-savvy investors and thinkers online daily to debate, discuss,
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Friday Feature / Core
Predictions
Gilder
Telecosm Forum Member 1 (1/5/07): Watching YouTube videos for
the last 30 minutes opened my eyes to a whole new universe of bandwidth wasting
and human community. It seems impossible to even think about the forms of
political and social community that will emerge when kids around the world can
simply hang out with each other, free, and, for that matter, go anywhere around
the world to do it.
How long will it be before anyone in the world can be hi-def present to anyone
else in the world?
Gilder Telecosm Forum Member 2 (1/5/07): The last mile bandwidth is
still missing... and this is crucial to start the party we all await...
Gilder Telecosm Forum Member 3 (1/5/07): Why do think I'm pounding
the table for you to buy the chips that go into the carrier boxes? The carrier
metro, edge, and last mile (access network) must be upgraded NOW! Enter EZchip
(LNOP) and NetLogic (NETL).
Ubiquitous broadband connectivity (wired and wireless) is an inevitability. It
is happening sooner rather than later.
Paul McWilliams (1/5/07): Telepresence is
just a couple years beyond a science experiment and has already captured more
corporate conference rooms than I originally imagined. I remember hearing of
one of the first systems, which was installed in the AMD board room and
participants exclaiming how, as Cisco (CSCO) so deftly explains today, users
simply forgot they were talking to a screen. Based on this and the rapid
adoption we're already seeing of TelePresence and other similar conference
systems, I have no doubt the penetration in corporate locations will continue
at a rapid clip.
While it is impractical to use a full duplex 1080p conference system in our
homes today for many reasons (if you can afford the system, you can afford the
bandwidth), if is highly practical in most large U.S. cities and in many
foreign countries. In large U.S. cities you can buy (from Towerstream for
example) 8mbs on a SLA (you get QoS) for about $1K/month.
You and I won't be using TelePresence or anything requiring that bandwidth from
our homes in the real near future, but either of us could (I know I can) go to
a video conference center and for a nominal fee use theirs. The point is video
use is expanding at a rapid clip and will likely continue to do so and, with
it, aggregate capacity at the core and at the edge, must expand too.
There are several generations of chickens and eggs that will need to pass
before... and we all need to keep close tabs on this to avoid investing too far
ahead of the curve. But, in reality, this is always the case and, as I noted in
my 2006 Telecosm Conference presentation, the core prediction made in Microcosm (first published in 1989)
didn't come to pass until this decade and now we can't get enough of low, slow
and massively parallel.
NOTE: Paul McWilliams is the editor of the monthly Next Inning Technology Research
investment newsletter and an active participant on the Gilder Telecosm
Forum.
To
read more posts by Paul McWilliams, George Gilder and the Gilder Telecosm Forum
members, visit http://www.gildertech.com/ and log on today.
________________________________________
Friday Blogger Bonus / Black Eye for
Polls
Bruce Chapman, Discovery Blog (1/8/08):
George Gilder has been pushing me hard to write about the preposterous over-emphasis
on polls in American politics today. I have agreed, but I especially have to
concur as a result of today's New Hampshire presidential primary.
It would seem
that all the polls were wrong, at least about the Democratic race. Even the
exit polls were wrong, the actual results deviating from the polls taken from
the voters themselves as they had cast their ballots.
Money is
constantly emphasized as crucial in American politics, but maybe in a
presidential race, at least, it can be an exaggerated influence, too. McCain
ran out of money months ago and seems to have won anyhow. Huckabee never had
any money and still won in Iowa and came in a respectable third in New
Hampshire.
New Hampshire is
a lot of fun in a presidential primary year. This year it also bespeaks the
vitality of American retail democracy. All the major campaigns have a right to
be proud
Check out the Discovery blog:
http://www.discovery.org/blogs/discoveryblog/2008/01/black_eye_for_polls_1.php
__________________________________________
Readings /
CES Video Gallery
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/multimedia/2008/01/gallery_ces_video
Google Wireless World
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/01/10/google-wireless-auction-tech-wire-cx_wt_0110google.html
The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/16-02/ff_iphone
Verizon Says It Has Dodged Slow Economy
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119998179876981103.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news
Weekly GTI Index
http://www.gtindex.com/
LG.Philips LCD's Prospects Brighten
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119999212081481589.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news
__________________________________________
Friday Letter Editor: Mary Collins George / mcollins@gilder.com
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