Chapter 9 Chapter 2 10 Powers to Flatten the World (6)

This is of course Google's goal - to facilitate people's access to knowledge expressed in various languages ​​and to achieve global knowledge sharing. Google hopes that, one day in the future, a handheld computer or a mobile phone will allow everyone to carry all human knowledge in their pockets. "Everything" and "everyone" are words you hear a lot in Google.In fact, Google's home page explains the origin of the word "Google" this way: It's a one-time conversion of "googol," which means the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. The Google founders wanted to give you so much, almost unlimited, information on their site. Google's success shows that people really, really want to have such easy access to the world's information.Nothing will advance the process of flattening the world more than this - making all human knowledge accessible to anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Eric, CEO of Google.Schmidt said: "We don't discriminate against anyone, unless you can't or don't have access to a computer, otherwise, as long as you can type, you can use Google. If a flat world means anything, it should mean This means that there is no discrimination in access to knowledge. Google now has 100 search languages, and it is still increasing.We can imagine a future Google with an iPod feature that lets you search by voice -- for those who can't use a computer. " How can search be related to cooperation?I call the link between the two "informing"

: It is the embodiment of open source, outsourcing, insourcing, supply chain and offshore operation in personal partnership; it means that you can build and use personal supply chain - supply chain of information, knowledge and entertainment; it is A self-cooperative way to research, edit, and choose entertainment without having to go to a library, movie theater, or Internet TV; Google's global popularity has led Yahoo and Microsoft (via MSN) to offer search on their sites, showing how willing people are to seek out this form of collaboration. Google's other creator, Larry.The easier and more accurate search becomes, the wider Google's user base will be and the more important it will be in driving global flattening, Page said.Every day more and more people can "inform" themselves in their native language.Page said: "Now only 1/3 of Google's searches are in the United States, and less than half of them are in English. As people search for more and more vague content, the published content is also increasingly vague. This is a further impetus The process of flattening the world." All major search engine tools have recently added new capabilities: users can search not only for information on the Web, but also for text, data or e-mail on the computer's hard drive.This is truly "informative" when you can search your memory more efficiently. At the end of 2004, Google announced plans to scan all the collections of the University of Michigan and Stanford University libraries into the database, so that tens of thousands of books can be searched and viewed online.

In the early stage of the search engine, people were surprised and excited about the large amount of information they could search. Yang Zhiyuan, the founder of Yahoo, said: "Nowadays, they have become accustomed to this and take it for granted. It's just about making these searches easier. The democratization of information has profound implications for society. Today's consumers are more efficient -- search engines allow them to find information, products and services faster than through traditional means, and they More information about work, health and leisure is available. Small towns no longer feel inaccessible. People have better access to things they are interested in, can quickly and easily become experts on specific topics and share their fun with others."

In the late 1990s, hundreds of thousands of web pages were added every day on the Internet. The founders of Google understood that the engine tools that could only search for keywords at that time undoubtedly could not keep up with this development speed.Brin and Peggy, both graduates of Stanford University in 1995 majoring in computer science, developed a new mathematical formula that can sort the search results by the number of linked web pages, thinking that the more linked web pages, the more likely they contain relevant information The greater the sex. A key strength of Google's emergence as the world's largest search engine tool is its ability to more accurately rank web pages by how much they are clicked on, and to filter out pages that try to appear in search results through bogus links.Even if Google is the last to enter the search engine market, it will still be favored by people for its more accurate and relevant search capabilities. (Google now employs a large number of mathematical talents to help it study the algorithms in search, making it invincible in the competition with its competitors.)

“For some reason, people underestimate the importance of search relative to the rest of the web,” Brin said. If you're searching for something like a health issue, you definitely need this information, because in some cases, it's even a matter of life and death.Some users will Google heart attack symptoms and then call 911. "But sometimes you do want to Google something more simple. I was in Beijing in June 2004. One morning I took the elevator downstairs with my wife Ann and my 16-year-old daughter Natalie, who was holding a stack of postcards to send to a friend.Ann said to her, "Did you bring their address too?" Natalie looked at her mother as if she were looking at someone from the nineteenth century.The daughter replied: "I didn't bring it. I just Google their phone number and I can find their home address."

Natalie was "feeding information" to herself in ways I hadn't even thought about using Google before. Thanks to Google, the digital information we create with our personal computers is suddenly searchable. They can be unearthed suddenly.It's amazing how never-before-searched information will be found in the future with more flexible search engines.These more advanced engines can sift through more and more different types of data, from pictures to videos to household statements to traffic information to high school newspapers to health medications.Kai-fu Lee, the former president of Microsoft Asia Research Institute and the current president of Google China, said: "People always think that text is the only source of information, but now, even pictures, videos, and books from a long time ago can be searched.

You can have geographic information, maps, local information, and personal information on your computer. .Essentially, everything we see, hear, touch, read, and write is information, and web searches now cover only a small fraction of what can be scanned, searched, and harnessed. "With the development of time, individuals will have the ability to rely on various devices to find anything in the world at any time, which will generate tremendous power. What excites me the most is this huge power," Li said, "I I will be able to concentrate my time, energy and brainpower on doing what I am good at instead of spending them on collecting materials.It is all about constructing, designing, imagining and creating things. "

When we were traveling in China, Natalie also brought her own iPod, which allowed her to inform herself in another way—in an entertaining rather than intellectual way.She is her own music editor, downloading all her favorite songs to her iPod and taking them to China.For decades, the broadcast business has been built on the notion that you run an ad on network TV or radio and hope others are watching or listening.Today, as the entertainment world gradually flattens, the importance of this phenomenon is gradually disappearing. Today's TiVo digital video recording technology lets you be your own TV editor, skipping commercials, recording your favorite shows, and watching them when you want to watch TV.You don't have to wait in front of the TV early on, forced to watch commercials forced upon you. TiVo technology lets you watch only the shows you like and the ads for those products you might be interested in.

But just as Google can track what you search for, TiVo can know what TV shows you lock, store, and replay.Here's a news quiz: Guess what's the most replayed show ever to have television? The answer: Jenny in the 2004 Super Rugby Finals.Jackson's topless incident (or, to put it mildly, her "clothing malfunction").In a press release on February 2, 2004, TiVo said: "The annual survey of TiVo household viewing shows that Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson made Super Bowl Sunday a The number is twice that of the most exciting event. The Jackson-Timberlake incident has greatly increased the popularity of TiVo among viewers. Tens of thousands of families have used TiVo's unique features to pause and replay this live TV program, and the audience rate increased by 180%.” So if someone can watch a show unlimited times when he wants to watch it, broadcast TV—playing a show at a certain time, with commercials in between, and guessing who’s watching—will become more increasingly loses its meaning.The only ones that benefit are companies like Google, Yahoo or TiVo, who learn to work with their users and provide them with tailored programs and ads.I think the day will come when advertisers will only be willing to pay for this kind of advertising, and that day is not far away.

Companies like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and TiVo have learned to live by not selling products and services to customers, but by building a cooperative system that allows customers to control themselves, and then responding quickly to customer needs .In this way, the efficiency will be greatly improved. Google CEO Eric."Search is a very personal thing," Schmidt said. "The power that it empowers people is unparalleled. You don't have to be taught and directed by others. It's an autonomous ability that allows people to use the information they need to go to the Internet. Do what they think is best. This is completely different from the previous things, radio and TV are 'one-to-many', telephone is 'one-to-one'. Search is the best expression of personal ability, let People use computers to see the world and find exactly what they need—everyone's search results are completely different.” Of course, Google not only provides search engine tools, but also is a very profitable business, mainly because the founder Recognizing that they could build a targeted advertising model: When you search for a specific topic, show relevant ads to your search, and then charge the advertiser for every time Google users click on the ads.Unlike traditional media, where the effectiveness of ads cannot be known, Google can know exactly what you're interested in -- what you're searching for -- and then link to ads that are directly or indirectly related to your search. At the end of 2004, Google launched another service: If you are in Bethesda, Maryland, and one day you suddenly want to eat sushi, you can send a text message to Google "Sushi 20817" - Bethesda zip code of the city - he'll send you a text message back with the addresses of a few sushi restaurants. However, "get information" is more than just searching for facts, it can also help you find friends, supporters and collaborators.It helps to form global communities across borders and cultural differences, another vital world-flattening force.One can find partners on any topic, project or topic - especially through portals like Yahoo.Yahoo has about 300 million users and 4 million active groups with 13 million individual members who join group discussions every month around the world. Yang Zhiyuan said: "The Internet is a field of self-service, and these Yahoo groups are an example. It provides a forum, a platform and a series of tools that allow people to have private, semi-private or public gatherings online regardless of time and space.It allows people to talk about topics of interest in ways that are not realistic or possible in real life.These groups allow people who have never met before to discuss common interests.Real-life communities can also meet online, thriving in an interactive environment (starting a local kids soccer team, educating young people on religious awareness and organizing alumni associations) for groups looking to share, organize and exchange information A virtual home.Some groups exist only online and cannot exist in real life, while some are reflections of real-life communities.These groups can form and disband at will, and topics can change or stay the same. "With good intentions, however, 'access to information' has another aspect that people must adapt to - other people can learn about everything from your childhood. Search engines have flattened the world: removing the mountains that people use to hide Canyons, rocky crags, exclude all possibility of covering up honors, whitewashing faults. In a flat world, you can't run, you can't hide, because even the smallest stone will be rummaged. You have to live your life honestly, because no matter what you do, no matter what mistakes you make, someday it will be found out.The flatter the world becomes, the more transparent ordinary people will become. In the fall of 2003, before my daughter Ori left for college, she began telling me about her future roommates.I asked how she knew—had she spoken to them before or heard from them?Neither, she told me.She just googled them online, and the search results included high school newspapers and local newspapers, etc., from which she could get a lot of information. Fortunately, the police records could not be googled yet.These are just high school kids! Dorf, who runs LRN, a business ethics consulting firm."In this world, you're better off just doing good things -- you can't just steal in one place and then move to another," Seidman said. "In Google's world, your reputation will always follow you. And get to where you're going to stop before you... Your reputation starts early on.Just like Mark.As Twain said, 'Always tell the truth so you don't have to remember what you said'. " In the era of super search, everyone is a celebrity. Google makes information flat—without class or educational boundaries.Airspace (Airspace) vice president of wireless technology sales company Alan.Cohen said: "If I can use Google, I can find everything. Google is like God. God is everywhere. God sees everything. In this world, you can ask Google for everything." A few months after Cohen told me this, I read this brevity on CNET's news site: "Search engine company Google said Wednesday that it has acquired Keyhole digital mapping company. The latter is a web software that allows people to see satellite imagery from all over the world... This software allows users to see things on the surface of the earth from space, and sometimes even see the street. However, the company High-resolution imagery showing the entire surface of the Earth is not yet available, and is limited to a few large U.S. cities. The company is working to expand that.” Power 10 - Digital, Mobile, Personal and Virtual on Steroids But what sets this iPaq apart is its wireless technology, the first of its kind that can communicate with the Internet and other devices in 4 wireless ways Connected Pocket PC.At a distance of 30 inches (1 inch = 2.54 cm), the iPaq can act like an e-commerce card by sending information to another handheld computer via an infrared transmitter.At a distance of 30 feet (1 foot = 30.48 cm), it can use the Bluetooth wireless function ... and at a distance of 150 feet, it can use the Wi-Fi antenna.In addition, iPaq also has a mobile phone function.If your boss or co-workers can't find you yet, you must be on the International Space Station. —Excerpt from an article in The New York Times on July 29, 2004 about HP's new laptop computer Mount Fuji.My colleague Jim.Brooke, director of the Tokyo bureau of The New York Times, is sitting across from me, but he doesn't seem to be interested in the roadside scenery at all.He's fiddling with his computer, which I actually have on my lap.But his computer can access the Internet wirelessly, but I can only type on the computer.A few days ago when we were in a taxi in downtown Tokyo, Jim was surfing the Internet on his laptop in the backseat and sent me an email via Yahoo, and I've been marveling at how advanced wireless technology is in Japan ever since .Except for a few remote islands and mountain villages, if you have a wireless card in your computer or any Japanese mobile phone, you can surf the Internet anytime and anywhere—from the depths of a subway station to the high-speed train passing through the village.Jim knew I was obsessed with the idea that Japan had much better wireless technology than the US, but he kept bringing it up to me over and over again. The village was left behind as the train advanced, and he said: "Look, Tom, I'm on the Internet now. A friend of mine who is a staff writer for the New York Times in Almaty [a city in Kazakhstan], whose wife just gave birth to a daughter last night, I was sending him congratulations. .I'm reading the headlines on the front page of today's New York Times. "Finally, I asked Jim, who is proficient in Japanese, to call the train attendant, and then I asked Jim to ask him how fast the high-speed train was going. After they chatted for a long time, Jim translated to me and said:" 240 thousand per hour rice. "I shook my head. We're on a high-speed train at 240 kilometers an hour, or 150 miles an hour—my co-worker is answering emails from Kazakhstan. And if I'm on the way from suburban Washington to downtown DC When I make a call, the mobile phone signal will be cut off at least twice. When I was in Tokyo, I also met with Jim’s colleague Todd Cao En. He explained to me while surfing the Internet on his mobile phone: “I am a surfer. So I pay $3 a month to subscribe to this special text message from the Internet, and every morning, I will have a text message telling me how high the waves are near my house, so that I can decide the best surf spot for the day. "(The more I think about it, the more I think I should run for President of the United States:"I promise that if I am elected President of the United States, the mobile phone coverage in the United States will catch up with Ghana within 4 years, and catch up with Japan within 8 years-on condition that Japan agrees Stand still and don't innovate for 8 years so we can catch up." My campaign banner will be very simple: "Can you hear me?") I know that sooner or later the US will catch up to the rest of the world when it comes to wireless technology.But the Chapter 10 Flattening Force isn't just about wireless technology, it's about what I call steroids.I call some of the new techniques steroids mainly because they amplify and amplify the effects of all other flattening forces.This chapter will highlight various forms of collaboration—outsourcing, offshoring, open source, supply chain, insourcing, and access to information—and make each one look like HP CEO Kali.What Fiorina says can be done in a “digital, mobile, virtual and personal” way to make the world a little bit flatter. By "digital" Fiorina means, under the influence of the PC-Windows-Netscape-workflow revolution, everything and process (from photography to entertainment, communication, word processing, architectural design and my lawn) sprinkler installations) are digitized so they can be produced, manipulated and delivered via computer, network, satellite or fiber optic cables.By “virtual,” she means that this process of making, manipulating, and delivering can be done quickly and easily—thanks to all the digital pipelines, protocols, and standards. By "mobile," she means wireless technology that allows people to connect with anyone, from anywhere, on any device. "Personal" means that you can do these things for yourself on your own device. What would a flat world look like if you adopted and enhanced all these new ways of working together? I'll just give you an example.john.Johns Hopkins President Bill.Brody told me about an incident that happened to him in the summer of 2004: "I was at a medical conference in Vail, and the doctor who was presenting was touting a new way to treat prostate cancer, but in reality This approach runs counter to current surgical practice. To add to his persuasiveness, he asserts that industry authority Pat Walsh's theories also support his views and quotes them out of context. After listening to him, I said to myself, 'That doesn't sound like Dr. Walsh's research.' So I immediately went to the Wi-Fi on my PDA, went to the Johns Hopkins homepage and then to the medical section, and started searching. It's a summary of Walsh's point of view. I clicked on one and started reading and I found out that Dr. Walsh's point of view was completely different from what the guy said. So I disputed it during the question period and the guy blushed .” john.All of Hopkins' research in recent years has been stored digitally, allowing Brody to search for information quickly and without hesitation.Advances in wireless technology have allowed him to search anywhere in the world from any device.And his PDA gives him the freedom to conduct personalized searches on his own. What are the steroids that make this possible? The first steroid has to do with computers.Simply put, computer performance includes 3 parts: computing power, storage capacity and output/input capacity.All of this has been steadily improving since the first mainframe generation, and that progress constitutes a serious class of steroids.As a result, we are digitizing, processing and delivering words, data, music and entertainment far faster than ever before. For example, for decades, chipmakers have been shrinking the transistors on their chips to shorten the distance electrons can travel, thereby speeding up data processing (BusinessWeek, June 20, 2005). MIPS stands for "million instructions per second," a measure of the computing power of a computer's tiny chips. In 1971, the Intel 4004 microprocessor could generate 60,000 instructions per second (0.06 MIPS).Today's Intel Pentium processor Extreme Edition (dual-core) has reached a theoretical maximum of more than 20 billion instructions per second. In 1971, the Intel 4004 microprocessor contained 2,300 transistors. In 2006, Intel's highest-end Pentium processor contained 1.7 billion transistors. However, the problem is that these tiny circuits are too dense, and the resulting high temperature will affect the operation of the chip.But don't worry about it. "Business Week" reported that chip makers make two or more computer cores work together in a microprocessor, replacing a single microprocessor, and then create ultra-fast or even ultra-fast chips.These computer cores can share the load, so each one doesn't overheat or consume too much power. At the same time, the speed of I/O data has been greatly increased: with disk drives at the speed of the 286 and 386 chips, it would take me about a minute to download a photo from a digital camera.Today's USB 2.0 disk drives and Pentium processors allow me to download in less than a second.Microsoft CEO Krieger.Mundy said: "Storage technology is also developing very rapidly, and its role in changing the world is no less than other forces." It allows various forms of content to become digital and portable products, and it also greatly reduces the cost of storage. the prices of these digital products. 5 years ago, no one would have thought that a 40G iPod that could store thousands of songs could be so cheap that even a teenager could afford it.The transmission of data has also undergone a great improvement.Advances in fiber-optic cables will soon allow one fiber to transmit 1 terabit of data per second, or 48 terabits per second if there are 48 fibers in a cable.Former Lucent CEO Henry.Schachter, who has mastered the technology, noted that you could "transmit all of the world's printed material in minutes on a single cable. This means unlimited information transmission capacity at zero incremental cost." .Even though Schachter's speeds refer only to the hub of the fiber optic network and not to the speeds that connect to your home computer, it's still a sign that we've come a long way. In Lexus and the Olive Tree, I mentioned a 1999 Quest commercial. The travel-weary businessman in the ad walks into a motel down the road and asks the impatient waiter if there will be room service, she says yes, and then he asks if the TV in his room will provide entertainment , the waiter replied in a disdainful tone: "The Internet in all rooms allows you to choose to watch movies in any language at any time." Come to the illustration of benefits.In the next few years, as storage capacity grows and memory shrinks, you'll be able to store many movies directly to portable memory. The second steroid includes breakthroughs in instant messaging and file sharing. File sharing in P2P mode allows computer users to share songs, videos, and various other files.Napster, the music exchange network, opened our eyes to this, allowing two people to share songs stored on their respective computers. According to Howstuffworks.com, "Napster at its best may have been the most popular website ever. In less than a year, it went from zero to 60 million monthly visits. Soon, however, It was shut down by a court order for copyright infringement and was not rebuilt as a music download site until 2003. The original Napster became an instant hit mainly because it offered a unique product that could effortlessly download Get free music from a large database." This database is actually the basis for file sharing, and Napster makes it easy for us to connect our computers so we can exchange music files.While the original Napster is no more, file-sharing technology lives on and has grown in sophistication, dramatically increasing the level of collaboration. The Associated Press reported on June 22, 2005 that online stores such as Apple's iTunes sold about 330 million music works in 2004, but there were still about 5 billion works that people downloaded for free from the Internet. The file-sharing programs of China - eMule, BitTorrent and Kazaa. The third steroid includes breakthroughs in Internet telephony technology. The rise of VoIP (Voice over IP) on steroids has made it easier and cheaper for us to work with all this digitized data.It turns voice into packets of data that can be sent across the network, and then converts them back to voice at the other end of the network, making Internet telephony possible. VoIP allows anyone to subscribe to the service through their phone company or private carrier so they can make local and long-distance calls from their PC, laptop or PDA with a headset on.Soon the service will spread - and it will be made possible by buried pipes that will make overseas calls as cheap as local calls - almost free.If that doesn't amplify every form of collaboration, I don't know of anything capable of that. Let's take a look at an article in the November 1, 2004 issue of Business Week about VoIP company Skype: "Eriksen is a small but huge translation company. The Brooklyn (New York) Translators translated business documents into 75 voices and provided them to customers in the United States. But at the same time, the company’s monthly phone bills were as high as $1,000. So when Claudia Wittman, director of business development, heard that Skype Technology could provide He jumps for joy when free voice over VoIP calls are made to Skype users elsewhere in the world. Six months after signing up, Eriksen's company phone costs have dropped by 10%, and his employees and freelance translators can now more often The exchange of ideas has greatly improved the efficiency and speed of work. Wittman said, 'This has completely changed the way we work.'" At the end of 2005, Skype launched the 2.0 beta version of the phone software, which some people think will make the technology more popular.This version includes video conferencing, a smoother and clearer interface, and a phone handle so you're not limited to a microphone attached to your computer. More and more parents tell me that, thanks to Skype and other VoIP systems, they can now regularly talk to their children who are studying or working in other parts of the world for almost nothing. VoIP will revolutionize the entire communications industry, which has been built from the ground up on the notion that phone companies will charge you for how long and how far you talk. The competition brought about by VoIP has made the days of phone companies charging by time and distance less likely.Not only that, but the old phone platforms lacked competition, and if you offer phone services over the Internet, all sorts of innovations can happen.You only need to double-click the name of the person in the address book to dial the other party's phone number.If you get a call from someone and want to identify them, their picture will appear on your screen.Companies will compete on SoIP (Service over IP): Who will allow you to hold a video conference with the best effect while talking on your computer, PDA or laptop; Allows you to exchange files and send text messages while having a conversation (so you can discuss the contents of the files).You can leave an audio message that can be converted into text for the other party, and at the same time send files that need to be studied together through attachments.Cisco's senior vice president Mike."It's not going to be about the length of the conversation and the distance, it's about how do you create value around these voice services," said Volpi. superior." The fourth steroid is videoconferencing technology, which will take it to a whole new level.Hewlett-Packard and DreamWorks Films collaborated on the design of video conferencing equipment, DreamWorks brought its film and sound technology, and Hewlett-Packard provided the computer and compression technology.Each party participating in the video conference sits at a long table, facing the camera lens and the large screen of the flat-screen TV. The final effect of this technology is that all the conference parties are sitting around the same long conference table, This is clearly qualitatively different from other technologies that have appeared on the market.I've had the pleasure of being in a video conference like this, and it's so realistic that you can almost feel the breath of the people on the other side of the screen, even though they're 500 miles away.Because DreamWorks makes movies and animations all over the world, it thought it had to have this kind of video conferencing solution where creative minds could communicate all their thoughts, facial expressions, emotions, etc.Shane, Chief Strategy Officer, HP.Robinson told me that HP plans to have these videoconferencing devices on the market in 2005, priced at around $250,000.Compared with the airfare and other costs of having to travel frequently to London or Tokyo for meetings in the past, this cost is really nothing.Companies purchasing these devices pay for themselves within 1 year.Such video conferencing equipment, once widely available, could make remote development, outsourcing and offshoring easier and more efficient. The fifth steroid deals with recent advances in computer graphics, partly fueled by computer games.These new technologies have greatly facilitated video collaboration and improved computing performance by providing clearer images and more ways to illustrate and control on-screen images. Irving Wladawsky-Berger of IBM blogged about this steroid.One of the most exciting areas of innovation right now, he writes, is around what he calls the third-generation user interface, also enabled by gamers.These promise to bring highly visual and interactive interfaces to a variety of applications in healthcare, education, science and business.他补充说，这非常重要，因为人与计算机的互动方式每次出现新模式时，我们就会看到各种新的应用软件开始出现，不仅与过去有很大不同，质量上也有很大提高。视频游戏在这方面尤其重要，因为除了拥有逼真的图像和不错的声效外，它们还具有高度互动和协作性逐渐提高的特点，因此它们是很好的“发射台”，可以让人们思考怎样才能和各种计算机应用软件实现最佳互动，未来该怎样相互合作。 第六种，同时也许是最重要的类固醇包括新的无线技术和设备。它们让我们和所有新型合作方式富有流动性，这样我们就可以通过移动方式在任何地方同任何人控制、分享和塑造我们的数字内容。 Airspace的高级副总裁阿兰。科恩辩论说：“通讯的自然状态就应该是无线状态。” 无线服务首先从声音开始，因为人们希望能随时随地进行通话，这也是手机成为很多人最重要的通话手段的原因。21世纪初，人们对数据通信也提出了同样的无线化要求——通过手机、掌上电脑或其他个人设备上网、发送电子邮件等。 （现在又出现了对无线技术的第三种要求，这进一步推动了世界变平的进程：机器可以和机器进行无线对话，比如沃尔玛的RFID芯片，这种小的无线设备可以自动将信息传送给供货商的电脑，让他们跟踪存货情况。） 在计算机出现的早期阶段（全球化2.0 阶段），你只能在办公室工作，那里会有一台大型主机，你得走过去让操作大型主机的人替你提取或输入信息，就像是在传递神谕一样。个人电脑和因特网、电子邮件、笔记本电脑、浏览器以及客户服务器出现后，我可以从自己的电脑上获取存储在网络上的各种数据信息。在这个时代，你可以从办公室中摆脱出来，选择在家里、宾馆里办公。现在我们已经进入全球化3.0 时代，数字化、微型化、虚拟化、个人化和无线技术的存在让我可以随时随地处理、收集或传送声音或数据。 科恩说：“不管你去哪里，你的办公桌都会跟随你。”能随时随地处理信息的人越多，竞争和通讯方面的障碍就越少。忽然间，不管你是在班加罗尔还是在班戈（美国缅因州的城市），我们都可以很方便地联系。这种无限联络的方便性就像电给我们带来的便利一样。摩托罗拉的首席技术官帕达玛丝丽。沃丽尔（Padmasree Warrior ）说，我们迅速进入了“自我移动”（mobile me ）的时代。如果消费者为获取信息、娱乐、数据、游戏或股票报价等付费，他们就希望能随时随地获取这些内容。 由于各种无线技术和标准现在仍无法共同操作（interoperable ），消费者感觉像是陷入了无线技术的迷宫。正如我们所知，一些无线技术可以在邻近地区、州或国家发挥效力，但超出了这个范围就会变得无能为力。 只有当你不管是用什么设备都能在全世界的任何国家和任何城镇与他人联络时，这种“自我移动”革命才算结束。只有当这种技术得到广泛传播时，“自我移动”令世界变平的作用才能得到充分发挥，人们才真正可以使用一切设备随时随地开展工作和交流。 对日本手机运营商DoCoMo在东京总部的访问让我对这种未来前景有了一点了解。这家公司在提供可共同操作的无线技术方面远远领先于美国公司。DoCoMo是“通过手机网络提供通讯”（Do Communication Over the Mobile Network）的缩写，在日语中，它的意思是“任何地方”。我到达DoCoMo的总部后，一个会日本式鞠躬的机器人带我参观了摆放着各种视频手机的展台，这种手机让你可以看到通话对象。 该公司U-Biz 部门（Ubiquitous Business ，普适商务）的副总裁三石多闻（Tamon Mitsuishi ）解释说：“年轻人将我们的手机当成双向视频电话。每个人拿出他们的电话，拨通号码就可以看到对方。当然，也有一些人不愿让对方看到自己。”DoCoMo的技术让你可以用卡通人物代替自己，并且在你想表示愤怒或快乐时，可以操作键盘让对方看到的卡通形象变成愤怒或快乐的表情。三石多闻还说：“这是手机，是数码相机，但他的功能已经类似于一台个人电脑。你需要很快地用拇指按手机键，我们称自己为'拇指一族'。日本的高中女生现在在手机上打字的速度要远远快于在电脑上打字的速度。”我趁机问道：“U-Biz 部门究竟是做什么的呢？”三石多闻回答说：“我们已经看到了网络在全球的普及，下一步应该提供相关的服务。到现在为止，网络通讯大多都是个人之间展开的——电子邮件和其他信息。但是，我们也开始看到个人和机器以及机器之间的沟通。人们希望有更丰富的生活，商业也希望有更高效的经营。 .虽然年轻人工作时间在办公室里使用个人电脑，但业余时间里却主要使用手机。现在的发展趋势是手机付账，在现金收款台的旁边会有一个手机智能卡的阅读器，你只需将手机放在前面扫描一下就可以结帐，手机也可以变成你的信用卡……” 似乎没有意识到英语中“control ”一词的双重含义，他继续说：“我们相信手机将成为个人生活的重要调节器（controller，也可译为控制器）。比如，在医疗领域，它将成为你的鉴别系统，你可以先检查病历卡，然后用手机进行支付。没有手机你将不能生活，你还可以用它遥控家用电器，目前我们需要进一步增加手机可操控的家用电器。” 手机会让我们对未来有很多担心：孩子在使用手机上网时可能会受到各种色情网站的诱惑，雇员会在上班时间用手机偷偷打游戏，一些人会用手机从事各种非法活动。 在日本已经出现了这种情况，一些人走进书店，拿下烹饪书，用手机拍下食谱的照片，然后再大摇大摆地走出去。幸好照相机在拍照的时候会发出声响，这样商店老板或者更衣室里站在你旁边的人就可以知道他们是否被偷拍。别忘了，可以联网的拍照手机不仅仅是个照相机，它还是个复印机，可以将偷拍的照片在全球传播。 DoCoMo现在正和其他日本公司合作开发一些新技术。比如，如果你在东京街头看到了麦当娜的演出海报，你会发现海报上有一个条形编码，用手机扫描一下条形编码就可以购票。另一张海报可能是对麦当娜新推出CD的介绍，扫描条形码就可以试听歌曲，如果你喜欢这张CD，你可以再扫描一次，订购这张CD，不久就会有人给你送上家门。《纽约时报》派驻日本的托德。曹恩娶了一位日本太太，他告诉我说，日本手机服务的内容是如此丰富以至于“当我和日本亲戚在一起时，如果有人提出了什么问题，他们的第一反应就是去找手机”。 仅仅是写这些就已经让我感到筋疲力尽，但很难夸大类固醇将如何强化其他9 种合作形式。这些类固醇会使开放源的创新更加开放，因为它们将让更多的人以更多的方式从更多的地方相互开展合作。它们也会推进外包，因为公司的单个部门都可以容易地和另一家公司开展合作。它们也会强化供应链，因为总部可以随时联系上将产品放上货架的雇员、每个包裹甚至生产这些产品的中国厂家。它们也将提高内包的水平——让UPS 深入其他公司内部负责他们的整个供应链，让司机自己使用掌上电脑同库房和客户联络。而且最明显的是，他们将改善提供信息的方式——通过Google和雅虎等搜索工具管理你自己的知识供应链，通过iPod或TiVo管理你自己的娱乐供应链，你不仅能获取信息供应链，还能把这些信息放在口袋里和其他人一起分享。 劳斯莱斯的总裁约翰。罗斯告诉我们一个绝佳的例子，说明无线技术和其他的类固醇是怎样帮助该公司完成工作流程以及同客户开展新型合作的。比如说，英国航空公司的一架波音777 航班正飞过大西洋，在格陵兰岛的上空附近，这架飞机使用的一个劳斯莱斯引擎遭到雷击，乘客和机组人员可能都会感到恐慌，但实际这是没有必要的。因为劳斯莱斯的引擎通过异频雷达收发机（transponder ） 同卫星相连，它随时都会将与其状况有关的数据传输到劳斯莱斯地面操作间的电脑上。很多劳斯莱斯的飞机引擎都是如此操作的。在复杂运算法则的基础上，劳斯莱斯电脑的人工智能作用让它可以监控引擎在运作过程中出现的异常现象。上文中出现的雷击情况很快就被劳斯莱斯电脑的人工智能发现，并立即发送报告给劳斯莱斯的工程师。 罗斯说：“我们随时可以通过卫星接收这些数据，在发现'情况'后我们的工程师就可以做出远程诊断。正常条件下，如果飞机引擎遭到雷击，飞机需要迫降，工程师要检查飞机已遭受多少损伤，并决定是否需要延迟航班对飞机进行修理。但是你要知道，如果飞机滞留很长时间，就不能按原来的安排返回机场，代价是很高的。现在我们可以在引擎出现故障的同时对其进行监控和检查，当飞机迫降时我们的工程师就已经做出了有关的决策。如果我们根据所有的信息决定不需要进行专门的维修，那么飞机就可以按时返回，这就可以给我们的客户节省大量时间和费用。”这些类固醇造成的结果是，引擎可以和计算机沟通，人之间可以沟通，计算机之间可以沟通，人类和计算机的沟通可以距离更远、速度更快、价格更低、方便更多。 当这些已经发生时，更多的人从更多的地方开始互相询问两个同样的问题：你现在可以听见我吗？我们可以一起工作吗？