Wireless Internet technology may help poor nations leapfrog into the future if they can get assistance to harness the new technology, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Thursday.
Wireless Internet access has "a key role to play everywhere, but especially in developing countries and countries with economies in transition," Annan said in a message to a UN conference on the rapidly growing phenomenon known as Wi-Fi.
Laptops are rare in the developing world and the money to buy the needed electronic gear is scarce.
Some 200 people -- representing technology companies, developing nations, regulators and international agencies -- attended Thursday's conference, organized by the Boston-based Wireless Internet Institute to help bridge the digital divide between the information society and the developing world.
Wi-Fi allows users of laptop computers and other gadgets to access the Internet without electric cords or phone jacks.
A race is on to install access points known as "hotspots" around the world, each capable of linking properly equipped portable computers in the vicinity to the Internet.
Pat Gelsinger, chief technology officer for Intel Corp, the world's biggest computer chip maker, said Wi-Fi was cost-effective, growing rapidly around the world and particularly appropriate for developing nations because it was neither government-regulated nor licensed and was built using industry-wide and worldwide standards.
In March, Intel introduced technology that it hopes by next year will make most new laptops sold in the world wireless-Internet devices.
Gelsinger said Intel was already marketing Wi-Fi in "tens of countries" in the developing world and would be expanding.
In developing nations including China and India, "we are looking at something on the order of 40 million to 50 million PCs and this is the fastest-growing sector of the market," Gelsinger said.
"This reflects a worldwide lust for technology. We see millions of people with the potential to become Wi-Fi users," he said.
"It is precisely in places where no infrastructure exists that Wi-Fi can be particularly effective, helping countries to leapfrog generations of telecommunications technology and infrastructure and empower their people," Annan said.
Annan, who was in Geneva on Thursday and could not deliver his remarks in person, called on governments, regulators, the computer industry and activists to work together to identify obstacles to Wi-Fi development and prepare a plan for overcoming them.
Mohsen Khalil, the World Bank director of information and communications technology, agreed it would take work to get Wi-Fi off the ground in poor areas.
Regulators might yet be tempted to impose charges or other restrictions on the technology, and the equipment costs are not insignificant, he said. And while the technology has shown great promise in tests, "the business model has yet to be tested in developing countries."
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS