*** The Q versus the US$ ***
Here's a PM I sent somebody which might be of interest and I hope QUALCOMM does in fact create a Q cybercurrency which I think will be the biggest app of all [other than Google - people love information]. Moving money and storing it has always been what people love - money and love, love and money, love of money, money makes the world go round, money, money, money, it's a rich man's world....
Hmmm, speak of the devil... w4.siemens.de [thanks to ElMatador for the link]
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Hello again [name deleted],
Tarken [our son, who understands all this stuff] quite likes WAP, but as you say, it's limited. He wrote, owns and runs the following businesses, eigokyoshitsu.com which teaches English to Japanese people and snowadventures.co.nz which brings people on their snowboard and adventure tours to NZ. They are in html and also imode so that people can access them on a cellphone. He gets a lot of people accessing them via cellphone, so I suppose WAP is a bit like imode in that it will have enough applications that it will be successful [I don't really understand the definition of these things but I think I've got that right]. He's not interested in EudoraWeb and other options because programming takes a lot of time, which he doesn't have and the number of people on Internet Explorer 5 is huge and imode is huge and the others negligible, [for now anyway]. So the market is leading the browsers to some extent.
You can try the imode sites by clicking on the little 'imode' link at the top of the home pages. He wrote those in Japanese so unless your computer is Japanese-enabled, they'll appear as muck. [Edit... you can shrink your browser window down to cellphone or pdQ screen size to see what imode looks like on a cellphone or pdQ gadget].
So, when somebody wants verbal information from Google on their little cellphone, or pdQ they'll use a text-only service [especially if the service providers are charging too much as they seem to do]. When they are lost and want a map, they'll use Browse-it, Blazer or some graphics software. But sometimes they'll use WAP where that does best what they want. I tend to go to the same sites very often and if I know WAP is the best access tool to the information, I'd use that.
Perhaps the current mobile devices can't handle enough software to run all 4 and choose one depending on application. But I suppose that will be fixed in a few years with improved storage in the mobile.
The GPRS people try to claim speed doesn't matter. I think speed is what humans love and they will want 0-100kph in one second. Waiting is a very unpopular activity. WAP is supposed to stand for Wait And Pay. But Tarken quite likes WAP and it does seem to be developing. Well, the market test is now on, with imode, WAP, GPRS and 1xRTT all looking for some piece of the action and I think the field will be huge with all sorts of competitors. There will be an overall 'most popular' but I think there will be a lot of options which remain viable.
If EudoraWeb could have a 'click here for images' icon, to enable image download when required, say, for a map, photo or whatever, that would perhaps be an efficient way to handle the Web. Companies which get a big piece of cyberspace are going to make vast fortunes [see ebay and the like and they are just beginning].
I'm very hopeful that Eudora and QUALCOMM can create an encrypted, secure, cybermoney which can be moved around at the click of an email or short message service. A bit like PayPal, but it has to be better.
Eventually, I visualize the money to be backed by ownership of shares in a basket of companies and people would have the option of using that, which would mean their stored money would increase in value while they are not using it. People would abandon the unbacked US$ in favour of the Q, a solid currency which earns a profit and is super easy to zoom through cyberspace, encrypted, private, secure, no counterfeiting, inflation, robbery or taxation! Accessible everywhere via cyberspace wireless links.
That is my wish for 2002 - that QUALCOMM will develop the Q currency. Microsoft and others would like to be in on that when it is underway - to provide spread of risk and a large market capitalisation to provide capital backing. I think it would be very popular. Initially such a system would have to run on US$, which is universally acceptable, but I think the share-backed currency would take over as people realized it is inherently more reliable and more profitable to own shares rather than US$.
Money movement and storage will be the biggest killer app of all! The Federal Reserve would be small by comparision because everyone on earth will use this currency in 20 years. The companies which create it will make the vast fortunes. Banks will become irrelevant other than as lending agencies who can analyse risk. Their ATMs will go the way of the Dodo bird.
Merry Xmas,
Mqurice
PS: Just for background, with some editing to keep privacy, here is some previous PM which might be of interest.
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>So to the NOK heads and the i-mode junkies and anybody else out there with WAP on the brain... I have to ask... do you want limited access to just a sliver of the web? That is WAP.
Or do you want access to the entire WWW? That is everything else.
Now as [somebody] responded, "who in the world would want just WAP?" I think we see in a nutshell why GPRS and WAP just don't seem to have a following. Kinda like if you were offered a car that only ran on 1 piston, (yet gee, came with many different changable colors) yet everyone else had a V-8.
The world is just getting the first taste of 1X... and without WAP... in Korea
As we discussed earlier the "killer app" is the WWW... the whole darn thing, not just what NOK says you can have.
I see the handwriting on the wall. It is not WAP.
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>People seem to always like to have a single effect or cause for
>something. Usually, things are not so simple. Same with "killer
>app". It's like asking "what's the killer app for a power station and
>power lines to a city?" There is a multitude of applications for
>electricity. Space heating is a big one, but probably not valuable enough
>on its own to build a power station and supply. LIghting is low in
>electricity demand but high value. Computers are very, very low in
>electricity demand but extremely high in value. Cellphone rechargers are
>very low in electricity demand but super duper high in value.
>
>There is NO need to try to identify a "killer app". Cyberspace is
>huge. People want access to that. They want access to their bank
>accounts, short messaging, email, pictures, sales information, taxi and
>movie availability and prices and a trillion other bits of information.
>
>BUT and it's a very BIG but, the greedy Globalstar people killed Globalstar
>by charging $180 an hour for a phone call [$2.23 per minute rounded up to
>the nearest minute] plus a big monthly charge and $1,200 for the
>phone. Unless they get the pricing model right for data, they'll make
>that a failure too. It has to be cheap, or, more accurately, what the
>market will bear. Just turn it on and let the prices fall where they
>may. Start in a busy area and when that is profitable, start expanding
>the service - the network effect will be enormous because as the number of
>users increases, the number of applications will increase in a snowballing
>way, or more accurately, in a nuclear reaction going critical kind of way.
>
>imode has shown that there is actually a demand and Korea is showing that
>too in the 1xRTT world.
>
>I got a notebook computer for my birthday, with an 80211.b link to our LAN
>[three computers] at home and ADSL connection. Now I can sit anywhere and
>use my fast little computer with the really nice screen. I bought CDMA
>phones for the family to celebrate CDMA coming to Kiwiland [I haven't got
>myself one yet]. I want to be able to use my notebook with a CDMA link
>anywhere I go. I'm waiting for the 1xRTT network to be turned on and I'll
>see how much they want to charge. I bet it's too much.
>
>It amazes me that people are uncertain about the demand for wireless
>cyberspace at reasonable prices.
>
>Well, there goes 2001 [almost finished],
>Let's hope 2002 is a better year.
>Regards,
>Maurice
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>At 12:05 PM 12/12/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>>First of all, hope you are still at this address.
>>
>>Second your comments on the Moderated Thread are classic, and very true:
>>
>>"Engineer, re: <No, I am saying DON"T DO ANY OF THAT. Period. Just turn on
>>a data channel and price it. then stand back and quit trying to control
>>the apps and
>> the distribution and the use and the users. Just offer the channel
>> and let innovation happen>
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>> How about don't even bother pricing it? Just leave it to users to
>> outbid each other for access to it.
>>
>> Just turn it on, leave everyone to use it how the heck they like and
>> bill them for what the market will bear.
>>
>> That's really simple, profitable and great for the customers who
>> won't get busy signals and will get really cheap prices when it's quiet.
>>
>> Singing the same old song,
>> Mq "
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>>In a couple of recent projects, time and time again the Project
>>Manager would listen to some of my ideas, then later would pull me aside
>>and ask, "so what do you think the killer app is for 1X."
>>
>>Whereupon I would answer: data is the killer app... we don't need to frost
>>it. Simply offering to the users the ability to connect and download data
>>almost anywhere is really the killer app.
>>
>>Riccochet tried it and almost made it... but due to limited coverage and a
>>data only model, they failed. 802.11 is going to try the data only model
>>also... in airports and Starbucks.
>>
>>This loudly says to me that some folks out there realize there is a market
>>for high speed data... however Verizon and Sprint are failing to
>>comprehend that they have the service area and ALL they need to do is TURN
>>ON THE DATA.
>>
>>Between voice and data, VZ and PCS will capture the market. But they are
>>too afraid to fail... they will not move forward without a "killer app,"
>>while failing to see that the "killer app" is ubiquitious high speed data.
>>
>>Build it and they will come.
>>
>>Just set up my "fresh out of college" nephew with a smartphone... and the
>>first question he had was, "can I use it to send data from my laptop."
>>
>>Bang! The killer app. Build it and they will come.
>>
>>Have a good NZ Christmas.
>>
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From the link above to the Deutsche Bank guy...
They are worried!! They will NOT want to lose control and have people escape into cyberspace with their money in a parallel universe. Too bad for them. There are two worlds coming = 3D where governments and guns can rule and cyberspace, where they can't and they are not needed anyway. Governments are for mutual self-defence. They are not our lords and masters and we the serfs. Most people don't notice that they have become serfs. Check your much-vaunted freedoms closely and see how much a serf you really are...
< Could control over money be taken from the banks? Would companies be able to, in effect, print their own money?
In Germany, the right to issue e-money is restricted to banks. At the EU level, non-bank enterprises are also allowed to issue e-money, but are then subject to the regulations of the banking supervisory authorities. They are thus designated as credit institutions, with all the consequences. Obligations involved cover many areas, including reporting, supervision, minimum reserves, the exchange of e-money back into central bank money, as well as direct refinancing at the central bank.
What impact will e-money have on central banks?
If the demand for cash declines because it is being replaced by e-money, the dependence of the credit institutions on refinancing from the central banks will decrease. This would limit the central banks' ability to set and enforce money market interest rates. On the other hand, cash is already being replaced by money on account to a great extent, without any lasting disruption of monetary policy. Furthermore, the minimum reserve requirement also has a big effect on deposits. This rate is currently 2 % for money on account, and could be raised if the volume of cash in circulation should decline sharply. In this way, the demand for central bank money could be artificially increased. Another result of e-money could be increased volatility in the growth of the money supply, in other words, unexpected changes in the circulation velocity of money. But the volume of e-money is still much too small for it to present a problem for central banks. Nevertheless, they are watching developments very closely.
> |
