Nowadays, service and consumer centric approach is the way forward in doing business especially in the digital world. These bring about innovations and new technologies to collaborate in synergy for effective fulfilment in terms of how products and services are delivered to the end user. In this effect, Converge network solutions for e-commerce plays a prominent role by bringing new platform in integrating different service-oriented systems which are designed to improve the way business is done in the new economies.
Part of what we see now are availability of different new innovations and technologies from Biometrics to VOIP services which provides cheap voice calls over internet protocols and also technologies such as RFID that ease inventory management and supplies. These innovations are basically an essential part of doing e-business as which we have learnt how early adopters set the market pace.
However, some of these technologies like destructive technologies alter the norm by bringing in new approaches and tools that affect larger aspect of the market. A good example is the Cellular Telephone or Hand-phone as they are called in Malaysia. This type of service completely change the way we transact business and the level of how information is transmitted. Customers can use these technologies to pay for items in stores or even transfer funds using m-commerce platform and e-banking.
( http://safaricom.co.ke/index.php?id=228 )
No doubt innovativeness in terms of technological development has brought about opportunities in how we transact business either online or offline it also has its consequences of unethical behaviours and actions which are not new to our society but another way of doing the same crime on a different medium. Certain question arises on implementing new technologies like RFID which in my opinion is a tracking device that can be use as a “Big Brother” in countries where human rights are serious issues. Personally, I am less worried about privacy issues because to me I prefer dealing with intuitive sellers that monitors my buying habits in order to recommend products and services that tally with my preferences, these could in another way ease my interaction with sellers and the time I need to compare and decide on a particular service either online or offline.
Furthermore, I hope to get personal opinions on the following issues;
- Are innovations and much of emerging technologies beneficent to our lives?
- How do we handle issues of policy vacuums created by new technologies in areas like privacy, copyrights and intellectual property?
- What are ethical issues associated with new technologies?
As much as I want to talk about these issues I guess people have different perspective which I look forward to receiving them on this blog.....
References:
http://safaricom.co.ke/index.php?id=228
16 comments:
Without further innovation, people are going to have to try very hard just to survive (Burke, 2003). Perhaps, there might be some problems exist in terms of innovations and emerging technologies. For example, children may have less freedom if their parents use RFID to track where they are going and what they are doing. How about employers use RFID to track their employees? Besides that, imagine your car, every building that you enter into, your house, your work—all of them have RFID security technology, it could be possibly for Big Brother to track your movements throughout the day, the week, and even the whole year (Shapiro, 2006). On the other hand, mobile commerce might irritate users of mobile devices such as mobile phones. Base on my experience as a user, users might feel annoyed if companies keep sending junk advertisements or make junk calls to them daily and not at the right time. Even though there might arise some problems, innovations and emerging technologies are still beneficent to our lives most of the time.
New technologies raise ethical issues for the reason that they create policy vacuums. For example, the protection of intellectual property is critical in an Internet-based world because copies are easy to make and are often as good as the original. For example, there are almost 50 million users of the Napster system at some point in time downloading as many as 10,000 MP3 formatted files each second (Smith, 2001). Although users know that these works are protected by copyright, know that the creators or/and singers do not want their works to be copied like this, they still feel comfortable with what they are doing (Smith, 2001). Besides that, casual copying is when people take a license for a particular piece of software and load it around. For example, I load it onto my PC and then I loan it to somebody else and he or she loads it onto his or her PC and loans it to a next person. Imagine if every people do like this, the creator might have incurred in significant loss. According to Nieman (2001), industry approximations are that up to 50 percent of the losses are due to casual copying.
It is hard to protect the intellectual property due to new technologies. Perhaps, copyrights should be done away with, that we should have some kind of automatic metering system where access is open, but the users need to pay a fraction of price whenever they download in order to reward creators or/and singers (Burke, 2003). Also, it is essential to reduce casual copying.
References:
Shapiro, J 2006, ‘The Disadvantages of RFID Credit Cards’, EzineArticles.com, viewed 31 August 2008,
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Disadvantages-of-RFID-Credit-Cards&id=163596
Smith, B, Nalebuff, M & Nieman, A 2001, Silicon Valley Speaker Series: The Future of Intellectual Property Protection, Microsoft Corporation, viewed 31 August 2008,
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/svspeaker/04-25svss.mspx
The Gartner Fellow 2003, James Burke’s Interview, Gartner, viewed 31 August 2008,
http://www.gartner.com/research/fellows/asset_60126_1176.jsp
For my opinion, having the innovation and emergence of technology benefits us in many ways and one of them is through the inventory system. Quoted by SkyeTek article,
“The costs and the time associated with manual inventory tracking methods that are commonly used by medical implant manufacturers are extremely high and do not protect from errors or misuse of these expensive products,” said SkyeTek CEO Rob Balgley.
“Typically, it is people on the sales team for the manufacturers who are tasked with conducting manual inventory counts, which leads to less time spent out in the field selling and generating new revenue. With the help of SkyeTek, these manufacturers and
distributors are able to greatly reduce the costs and time associated with inventory tracking, allowing the sales team to focus on selling versus managing inventory counts.”
From the article, SkyeTek, is a provider of RFID reader technology which enables medical manufactures and distributors to improve their operations and inventory management through the usage of RFID. With the usage of RFID, it allows medical implant manufacturers and distributors to automate the inventory management process and it results with a fast and comprehensive verifying in that field.
Another issue that could affect the emergence of technology is the intellectual property.
Developing emerging technologies is a risky business. Besides the uncertainty in evolving a viable technology and getting out to the market on time, there are also legal possibilities to consider. The damage caused by infringement could possibly destroy the value that is built into an emerging technology’s intellectual property. Therefore, emerging technology companies have to avoid that risk and assure that their intellectual property is properly managed.
The impact of innovation and technology on our society is unmistakable and emerging technologies will continue to grow and penetrate our existence. It will create better technology, newer processes and there will be an increase of demand for it by improving it further. Emerging technology developers need to protect what is theirs especially their idea, processes and also the end results. Therefore, they must have a trustworthy outsourcing party to protect and manage their intellectual property assets.
For the ethical issues, from my point of view every new technology that is created will have its own hidden effects in the environment. However, it is the matter of choice of what the society wants to do and how they will do it. New technologies obviously provide us a better way of living but someday society may not want or maybe willing to be control by ‘them’.
References
SkyeTek, SyeTek enables Medical Implant manufacturers and Distributors to automate Inventory management,
http://www.skyetek.com/Company/NewsEvents/NewsEvents/tabid/271/newsid1448/258/mid/1448/SkyeTek-Enables-Medical-Implant-Manufacturers-and-Distributors-to-Automate-Inventory-Management/Default.aspx, viewed 3 September 2008
Iron Mountain, Intellectual Property Management for Emerging technologies,
http://www.pubblicaamministrazione.net/file/whitepaper/000071.pdf,
viewed 3 September 2008
I believe that innovative companies would be able to benefit from innovations and emerging technologies by sharing the same vision. When all employees in a company have the same visions, then everyone would be motivated to work towards that particular vision and contribute to its success. Besides, by being innovative, communications between different departments in a company is vital to encourage cooperation and to get different views and opinions of those who are experts in the field. An example mentioned by Mr. Rodney is the lecture would be marketers should also be involved in works of researchers. Top managements should also be included in sales trips with their sales person or be involved in activities at selling floor to identify problems faced by them and to communicate with customers to find out how to satisfy their needs and wants better. Besides, when all individuals come together and share their opinions, new ideas can be created and exchanged. Meeting in forums can also create innovations when others comment on an idea, with suggestions and opinions to improve it. Furthermore, by being innovative in culture, employees would be able to work in a more relaxed working environment and feel less stressful. Hence, this would drive innovation and increase their work capabilities.
Meanwhile, with RFID (Radio Frequency ID) tags being embedded in clothing for companies to find out on the lifecycle of their products or to avoid their brand products being imitated, this would be against the privacy rights of their consumers. As a result of the usage of RFID tags, companies are actually tracking movements of consumers without their formal consent and would affect their private lives and rights. Furthermore if the RFID tags served to avoid product imitation and infringement, then consumers would be unlawful if they remove the RFID tags on their own. Hence, consumers’ actions and use of own private property would be controlled by the RFID tags’ owners. Consequently, general public would start to lose their freedom and privacy (Gross, RD 2003).
Among the challenges of innovation in companies include hostility. Managers may not be actively involved in generating new ideas, to drive their employees to do the entire thinking and brain- storm themselves for new, innovative ideas. Hence, this would create a stressful working environment for employees with the increased pressures to think of something creative and new all the time. According to Wladawsky- Berger, I (2008), this would lead to corporate bullies where top management would expect employees to be innovative and comes out with brilliant ideas. And, if employees come out with ideas that are not good enough to bring the company to the next level, the top management would simply shove the ideas to the side and act in hostility, or worse the organization would isolate employees who are unproductive and not innovative.
In conclusion, even thought businesses would benefit from the usage of innovative and emerging technologies and products; it would indirectly harm the privacy rights and freedom of its users. Besides, when companies concentrate too hard to be innovative, it would also have a negative impact on social lives of their employees’ and affect their emotional state. Hence, to be innovative, companies must weigh the costs and benefits of innovation and emerging technologies before implementation.
References:
Wladawsky- Berger, I 2008, The challenges of innovation: indifference, hostility, and isolation are among the major obstacles to a healthy innovation environment, The McGraw-Hill Companies, viewed 3 September 2008, http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/aug2008/id20080822_832405.htm
Gross, RD 2003, Europe’s proposed intellectual property enforcement directive unmasked: overbroad proposal threatens civil rights, innovation and competition: privacy rights threatened by RFID tags ability to track customers, Commission of the European Communities, viewed 3 September 2008, http://ipjustice.org/ipenforcewhitepaper.shtml#Ib3
Certainly, emerged technologies do benefit to our life. For example, Skype is one of the most popular voice communication services in the world. Skype is the most popular voice communication service in the world. Skype is free software that allows people to make free phone and video calls using VoIP to other Skype users as well as providing free Instant Messaging and file transfer. It also allows very low cost phone calls to normal phones or mobiles phones and SMS messages to mobiles. In the past, making international calls cost a lot and each second running means more money to spend. However, in the 20th century, we no longer need to bother about this anymore, as we do only have to pay monthly for internet services to connect to people around the world by using Skype for chatting with family, friends, business call and so on.
VoIP does benefit everyone in the whole world as by having a broadband connection with either DSL or cable, we are able to use VoIP which is considering a low cost telephone service. We can connect to any angle through out the whole world if only there are two personal computers exist. For a pc to pc, phone call it can be no cost at all while a pc to phone connection does cost cheaper compare to the traditional long distance call. Besides, for a traveler, VoIP do provides the advantage of portability. As long as the traveler has access to a broadband connection, they can easily and cheaply connect with family, friends, and business associates. All they have to do is to sign up and make their call and no worrying about cell phone coverage, roaming or long distance charges.
However, the usage of internet do creates problems in privacy, copyrights and intellectual property. Email privacy is consider one of most problematic issue as most of us send email regardless of teachers, students, businessman, friends to friends, family and so on. When someone sends a message by email, message is broken into bytes and each packet contains bytes of data that will be sending out over the Internet. Packets are to be sending using different routes and the chances for them to reach another person is high and it might be even examined or intercepted.
Besides, internet can also lead to copyrights and intellectual property issue. In the internet, duplicate materials can be easily found such as e-books, songs, movies, magazines, software, games and so on. There are numbers of laws and agreements throughout the world to protect all this intellectual property rights and the right to duplicate these can be only granted by the owners and it is referred as copyright. But, from time to time, people tend to ignore this and make the internet the world of ignoring one’s intellectual property rights and copyrights. Many has copy images of the e-books and post it in the internet so everyone can save their money without the need to buy it online but to download it as picture format so they can view it for free.
So, ethical issues are to be brought up to solve the stated issue. Internet privacy can be considered as a subset of computer privacy as when it comes to website users giving out their personal details on the Internet. For some websites, which involve in online shopping, the users are made to input their credit card numbers. In case of emailing, there are issues about whether other users should be allowed to store or read emails without informed consent. Whether or not, they should be permitted to track the visitors on a website, is another major privacy concern. The other important Internet privacy issue is whether the sites that gather personally identifiable information from the users should store or share it. Computer privacy consists of the data privacy relating to the avoidance of the improper disclosure of the personally identifiable information collected and stored by websites. The effective sharing of data while protecting the private information is the real challenge. Therefore, everyone should be ethical when using the internet as when used right, it will benefit all of us.
References:
Buzzle.com 2000, Ethical issues of internet privacy, Buzzle.com, viewed 2nd September 2008,
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/ethical-issues-of-internet-privacy.html.
Schueneman, T 2005, The advantages and disadvantages of using VoIP, EzineArticles, viewed 2nd September 2008, http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Advantages-and-Disadvantages-of-UsingVoIP&id=147921.
Singh, M 2005, Advantages of VoIP, EzineArticles, viewed 2nd September 2008, http://ezinearticles.com/?Advantages-of-VoIP&id=98309.
TechRepublic 2006, 10 ethical issues confronting IT manager, TechRepublic, viewed 2nd September, http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-22_11-6105942.html.
Unuth, N 2008, What is skype?: an introduction to the most popular VoIP software and service, About.com, viewed 2nd September 2008, http://voip.about.com/od/voipsoftware/a/whatisskype.htm.
TechRepublic 2006, 10 ethical issues confronting IT manager, TechRepublic, viewed 2nd September, http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-22_11-6105942.html.
Viewed 2nd September, http://webliminal.com/Lrn-web09.html.
Innovations – The Catalyst to Music Piracy
Companies that ignore and overlook the potentials of new innovations that are related to their industries are likely to face harsh consequences. They might lose the market that would move along with the innovations which have turned into disruptive technologies. This was what happened when the MP3 and P2P emerged. (Christensen, 1997)
It all started when the Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG) developed the technical standards for audio and video signal compression. The audio version of the standards, or popularly known as the MP3, compresses the size of music files that eventually eases the transferring of the music files over internet connections. These standards were then implemented into software which available for free to users. As a result, the innovative P2P services began. Napster was the pioneer in offering internet users to share their music collections online and we start to witness the struggle of the music industry.
Apart from innovation, there are few other issues that contributed to the music piracy:
1. Unwillingness to reduce price
With the availability of free music, music fans expect more reasonable price on original products. However, record labels refused to reduce their selling price in response to these innovations of MP3 and P2P. Instead, they underwent a lawsuit in the year 2000 represented by a group of 40 states which led Eliot Spitzer. They agreed to ‘‘refund $67.4 million to consumers who purchased CD’s from 1995 to 2000 and eliminate policies that set minimum prices for advertised CD’s’’ (Shapiro & Varian, 1999).
In fact, it is evident that there is willingness among consumers to pay for online music in general, via legal download services such as the well-known Apple’s iTunes which offers a price of $0.99 per song. At this price, it is sufficient for record labels to obtain usual sales fees. Not only that, they no longer need to produce physical products (eg. CDs) and perform distribution.
2. Protection of Intellectual Property
According to Shapiro and Varian (1999) most of the music producers place too much focus on protecting their intellectual property but in fact they should try maximizing the value of the intellectual property. They also mentioned, “If you lose a little of your property when you sell it or rent it, that’s just a cost of doing business, along with depreciation, inventory losses, and obsolescence”. Therefore, these music producers should not waste their money on lawsuits but instead invest on promotions for their artists. This is likely to enhance the popularity of the artists and their songs as well as gaining extra revenues from concerts and other performances.
Nevertheless, music piracy is not all bad. Easley et al. (2003) found out that music piracy in fact plays a fundamental role in revamping the music industry. Among the efforts shown in the music industry are:
(1) Adopt internet technologies
(2) Create richer and more fully featured web sites
(3) Experiment with electronic forms of distribution (i.e. preview of songs)
We do witness more and more artists whether foreign or local, they utilize IT applications to promote themselves. For instance, local artists such as Hannah Tan not only created her very own nicely designed website, www.hannahtan.com but also has a Facebook account to promote her performing career.
Therefore, the music industry should look at music piracy as a ‘push’ and extra motivation to improve their strategy and business model. And most importantly, not pinpointing at innovations for the slight downfall in the industry.
Reference:
Easley, RF 2005, ‘Ethical Issues in the Music Industry Response to Innovation and Piracy’, Journal of Business Ethics, SpringerLink, DOI 10.1007/s10551-005-0187-3, viewed 3 September 2008.
I think it is better for music industry to stop focusing on selling music in the form of album physical CDs. Because currently is entering Internet Digital Age, Majority of person in the world are already able to access the Internet. It is way far better if the music industry to sell music through websites on the Internet such what was being done by Yahoo and Apple. For example of Apple’s ITunes music store, it cost only about ninety nine cents for each downloadable song. Not only from website such as Apple, nowadays P2P application also have proven to be the most demanding software application to get pirated songs for free. And sometimes the song obtained from P2P also proven to be a high quality song as well. Who would not want a nice high quality song for free?
Again it is all about the ethical issue. It is certainly illegal to download and copy songs from other people through P2P software application process. However, since we have the power of the Internet to do it, it is no surprise that we would like to break the rule. The chances that we would get a malicious virus through P2P downloading are maybe from 25 songs downloaded, we would get attacked by the virus only once.
In conclusion, I would like to say that it is no point for us to try to catch the illegal acts of P2P because that would waste a lot of times and energy. Since in this Digital Age, I think that even a kid already know how to download illegal song. Thus, what we can do is try to open more website song downloadable services application such as Apple’s ITunes which would ensure people to download songs “Legally” through the Internet which would guarantee cheap and safe downloadable files.
Reference:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/?itmsUrl=itms%3A%2F%2Fax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net%2FWebObjects%2FMZStore.woa%2Fwa%2FstoreFront%3Fign-mscache%3D1
Hi Indah,
Nice work on the music piracy write-up. Yes, I do agree with you that music prices should be much affordable as a legal download because of the elimination in huge cost of distribution of physical media brought about my digital downloads.
But the issue I think we really need to look into is morality, in the sense that even though we can make illegal copies of somebody else's intellectual work does not mean we should. Ethically, I can vow that no society in the world accepts stealing in whatever form you want to call it, it's just morally wrong.
We the dot com generation have to reflect back and understand what we need to do in other to respect other peoples’ property. Don’t get me wrong here, all what I’m trying to say is, having tools and means is not a license for unethical behaviours, remember technologies related crime are not new but rather different way of doing the same crime.
Regards.
Bello
Hi Bello, I would like to discuss more about the security issues and how it affects our lives. There are many advantages to RFID technology today; however, we realize that RFID technology also pose terrific problems for security, consumer privacy and the way we like to live today.
Apart for the benefit of RFID used, it also raises some concerns with regarding to personal privacy. Most of companies assure that their RFID technology is secure and safe to use. But is this technology as secure as the experts say it is? RFID smart card can be easily utilized with just swipe its through reader and even without having to type in a pin number when users. Therefore, with using regular credit card, cashier usually will look at the card and compare signatures. However, with RFID smart card, this extra step of security may be forgotten.
From the finance point of view, due to RFID credit cards’ ease of use that makes the process of purchasing and spending too easily. This will drive up users’ debts. The chances of spending from users will become higher – to just wave their cards again and again. How do you think?
Reference
Joshua Shapiro, “The Disadvantage of RFID Credit Cards”, Ezine @rticles, 2008, viewed 3 September,
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Disadvantages-of-RFID-Credit-Cards&id=163596
Hey Yee Tian,
Good observation. Can I use your RFID-enabled credit card just for a day? I guess not.
RFID enable credit card means spend more with ease but pay over budget debts. Totally agree with you, but I guess if you pay your credit card bills personally then you will have a kind of financial discipline to cap your spending.
Like you said Yee Tian, security and privacy issues will remain the greatest challenges in deploying RFID. This technology is barely matured enough to handle issues like protecting information embedded onto them securely. This is greatly due its design, by default RFID tags are passive chips only activated by the readers which means radio signals from RFID enabled devices can be read by any reader. The only secure way information is processed, is encrypting data transmission between tags and readers. In areas of privacy I am sure there were a lot of discussions on the issue of how RFID affect our fundamental rights to privacy. I’m sure you know what ‘Big Brother” is all about. I just cannot image my girlfriend asking me to have RFID implant which means no more boys night out! That is disastrous!!!
The bottom line is, there is no 100% secure technology (RFID inclusive), that is to say we have to compromise a bit of our privacy in order to make life easier.
That just the price we have to pay for innovation.
Yours Bello
Question: How do we handle issues of policy vacuums created by new technologies in areas like privacy, copyrights and intellectual property?
Economist said that the growth of technologies is important to boom the countries economic and most of the time we do agree with them. However, the opportunities costs from this would be the illegal and ethical issues. Here the question is how to overcome this issue.
Shut down illegal file-sharers
One of the solutions is shutting down the illegal file-sharers. This is what the Japanese has done recently where their Internet Service Providers (ISPs) co-operate with the copyright holders by using “special detection software” to identify people who repeatedly make copies illegally, and then notify the appropriate ISPs. The ISPs will then send warning emails to the users and if it doesn’t stop after that, the providers will either temporarily disconnect their Internet access or cancel their contracts altogether.
Although this policy is just on the developing stage and we do not know how successful the action is in the future, but in my opinion, I do think this is a good idea and it may succeed if this policy was implemented elsewhere around the world.
Reference:
ECOMMERCE TIMES, “Japanese ISPs Agree to Shut Down Illegal File-Sharers”, http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/62163.html?wlc=1220531777, viewed 4 September 2008
Digital Fingerprinting and Watermarking
Digital fingerprinting and watermarking are the new technologies that enable copyrighted content to leave a trail of crumbs and alert wary hosting sites if they’re about to unwittingly enable illegal content sharing. Digital fingerprinting is mainly used to monitor who is using the material with or without permission. It also provides a reliable tool to enforce contract abuses when subscription contracts expire and are not renewed. On the other hand, with watermarking, the image is altered by embedding a hidden identifier in the image. The scanning or reading software will then finds this hidden label and matches up on the image.
While fingerprinting is nice in theory, often the only other forensic tool that works is watermarking because watermarking provides a method to track and identify pirates of copyrighted content. Besides, digital fingerprinting is fairly well-known, and some of the most determined abusers are found in academic communities is one of the reason why watermarking is better than fingerprinting.
Reference:
ECOMMERCE TIMES, “Dusting for Copyright Clues With Digital Fingerprinting Techs”, http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/64249.html, viewed 4 September 2008
Encryption
Besides, companies may also encrypt stored data to prevent data loss and leakage through unauthorized removable devices and unmanaged port access. It is the top two technological responses that followed in the wake of a breach. Companies are encouraged to encrypt their consumers’ information because the information is unable to be used for identity it is encrypted.
Reference:
ECOMMERCE TIMES, “New Security Suite Blocks Data Diversion”, http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/encryption/61843.html, viewed 4 September 2008
Conclusion
After looking at some of the solutions available for policy issues, there is another question appear in my mind: “Who should play the main role in this situation?” and my answer is the ISPs. This is because ISPs are the closest group to fight against theft. They can easily block the users from using the internet service if they found that the users have done some illegal actions. Therefore, it’s just not socially responsible and the ISPs are not unaffected third parties. They shouldn’t say it’s not my problem.
After reading Ai Sing’s comment, I am attracted by the words of “innovative companies”. I wonder how a company becomes an innovative and how it instills innovation. Due to my curiosity, so I have looked for some findings. Among 50 Most Innovative Companies, Apple ranked No.1 and it beat runner-up Google with more than double the votes (BusinessWeek, 2007). Surprisingly, it ranked No.1 in 2006 and also 2007. Take a look at how Apple keeps innovation all the time to become the world’s most innovative company. In fact, the company has met with many a setback before it becomes successful and innovative.
According to its CEO, Jobs (2004), Apple has gone through such a hard time especially when it lost its monopolies like control of the graphical user interface for around 10 years. However, the company is able to survive or even become better ultimately. Now, Apple is saying no to 1,000 things in order to be more focus on the very significant creations. Its main goal is to make great products such as the world’s best PCs and not to be the biggest or the richest and followed by its second goal, is to make a profit all the time (Jobs, 2004).
Apple is a disciplined company and it focuses on great processes rather than systematize innovation. Its innovation always comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30p.m.with a new idea or they have figured out the coolest new thing and want to know others’ comments on the idea (Jobs, 2004).
On the other hand, the company keens on hiring people who always want to make the best things in the world. Employees work very hard around there. They work every night and weekend or even holidays as well, just because of the same goal, i.e. keep coming out the best and innovative thing. For instance, they developed iTunes and decided to prove that Apple is not only an excellent hardware company but also software as well (Jobs, 2004). They pursued an opportunity to reinvent the music business and eventually, they did it successfully.
According to Jobs (2004), he is satisfied with his great employees who enjoy doing their work and wiling to help each other even though they need to work very hard and sacrifice their time with their family. For example, top executives are willing to take half of the other work such as day-to-day management of the company and let the CEO spend his time on the new or forward-looking stuff. It is really great! However, like what Ai Sing has mentioned, if a company concentrates too hard to be innovative, it would have affected social lives of its employees and their emotional state negatively due to they need to work very hard and stress always. Perhaps, like what Google has done, Apple can provide its employees with free food and luxurious office or other consumption perks in order to let them to have such a comfortable working life. In fact, I am waiting desperately in terms of there is a lot more forthcoming innovative products.
References:
BusinessWeek 2004, ‘VOICES OF THE INNOVATORS: The Seed of Apple's Innovation’, The McGraw-Hill Companies, viewed 5 September 2008,
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct2004/nf20041012_4018_PG2_db083.htm
BusinessWeek 2007, The 50 Most Innovative Companies, viewed 5 September 2008,
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/05/0503_innovative_co/index_01.htm?chan=innovation_special+report+--+2007+most+innovative+companies_2007+most+innovative+companies?sr=hotnews.rss
Based on the article found, I have just realized that Malaysia is the first country to issue e-passport with RFID chips embedded. AS mentioned by Ismail (2007), “the motivation implementing these ePassport and RFID passports initiatives are meant for surveillance. It also evidences the government’s level of seriousness to combating potential terrorism and crimes”. Although the technology in Malaysia is not as advanced as the countries like Japan and America, we should be proud that Malaysia was the early adapter for the use of RFID in passports.
Besides that, RFID technology is not only can be used for e-passport, it is also useful for overall airline industry and thus, it can be defined as a globally accepted technology in airline industry. For instance, Finland’s largest airline is using RFID solution to enhance the performance of airport operations, RFID luggage tracking system has been used by China to track passengers’ luggage as well as used for predictive maintenance of airplane in certain airline companies (RFID Gazette 2006).
Move on to copyright issue, like what had mentioned by Bello, no one would accept their work being copied by someone else in an illegal manner to generate profits for their own self-interests. However, it is beyond power and control of music industry to stop third parties to duplicate their copyrighted materials. Thus, music industry should think of some other ways to give authorization for others to use their copyrighted materials which in return, it will also bring benefits to the music industry.
As James Burke (Gartner 2003) has claimed that, “we are going to have to accept the fact the Internet makes it too easy to access copyrighted materials. Therefore, instead of fighting it, what we ought to do is settle down to some kind of automatic metering system where access is open, but the user pays a fraction of the retail price. On a global scale, that means the rights owner still makes a colossal amount of money because there are potentially 6.4 billion buyers on the planet. It's a simple choice: do I want to sell books only through my publisher and get 10 percent of 27 copies? Or do I want to get one cent per copy and sell it to six billion people? I know which I would choose”.
Based on this, we could know that having our brain thinking in a different path will allow us to gain unexpected advantages too. Allowing third parties to use our copyrighted materials with certain terms and conditions applied rather than totally banned them for doing so; it could create a win-win situation for all the parties involved.
References
Ismail, N 2007, ‘Radio Frequency Identification Technology (RFID): Malaysia’s privacy at the crossroads?’, BILETA, viewed 4 September 2008, http://www.bileta.ac.uk/Document%20Library/1/Radio%20Frequency%20Identification%20Technology%20(RFID)%20-%20Malaysia's%20privacy%20at%20the%20crossroads.pdf
RFID Gazette 2006, ‘Airline’, Dotmarketer, viewed 5 September 2008, http://www.rfidgazette.org/airline/index.html
Gartner 2003, ‘The Gartner Fellows: Interview with James Burke’, Gartner, November, viewed 5 September 2008, http://www.gartner.com/research/fellows/asset_60126_1176.jsp
I would say that policy vacuum issues already become an essential matter that influences our life. But in a meantime, the rapid improvement of technology bring us to a situation that there is no easy way for us to fill in the empty “slot” of the policy. As we know that policy vacuum term refer to a condition where there is no suitable policy that available to fill the new technologies that come out. Because we know that new technology is not always good or purely good, anyone could do it for either good purpose or bad purpose. Remember that RFID thing, it take our privacy as the return of the mobility they offered.
To fill in the policy vacuum is not as easy as it seems, it would required us to fully understand the situation. For example, the usage of data mining technology, will it be a breach of customers’ privacy? Basically, data mining technology would be used to analyzing the customer’ buying behavior in order to forecast the possible market segmentation. I would say that data mining is very useful for business person, but it is a total breach of customers’ privacy. Using their sensitive data such as their income to have accurate information is very far from respecting other people’s privacy. How we should react with this kind of situation because right now there is no rules that prevent Business Company to use their customers’ information.
Since there is still no law that talking about the privacy, one thing that we can do about handling policy vacuum is how we develop the way we think and how we differ one situation with another. One simple solution that I am thinking about the data mining technology is asking a formal consent to be signed by the customers stated that we will use their sensitive information for our business purpose. Make them fully understand about what we are going to do with their information and be transparent about it. Isn’t it a win-win solution for both parties? Well, I must say that this problem is just a little example about how to protect the privacy. We know that Internet is a wide area where we could everything with no boundaries. As the technology is developing very fast right now, let us hope the scientist will find a new technology that can make us feel safer about our privacy, copyrights and intellectual property.
Reference:
Johnson D.G., Computer Ethics, 3rd ed. Prentice Hall, USA
New technologies have been one of the most useful tools to assist many businesses to do their work in a more efficient and effective way. Computers and the internet has been one of the widely utilized technologies that enable many organizations to operate and communicate differently from the earlier period. However, the use of technology has caused a number of problems or issues that increase the concern of many people and has lead to both intended and unintended consequences.
Technology has impacted us in many ways. These technologies now are mostly designed to store data and assist people in their work. For example, computers are use to store data of the organization and devices such as credit card reader collect huge amount of data daily. Obviously, advances in technologies have changed the way many organizations do their business significantly and these changes impacted people in countless ways.
We all know what ethics are and why it is important in our daily lives. Technological advancement indeed brings productivity and development in each organization but ethical issues are still raised by many due to these technologies. Many companies face high-tech crime where employees in the companies snoop through the company’s confidential data and send to the third parties or criminal theft. According to Andrews, P, H and Herschel, R, 500 corporate security directors, 98.6% reported that their companies had been victims of computer-related crimes. Of those, 43.3% said they had been victims at least 25 times. The most common crimes reported were credit card fraud, telecommunications fraud, employee use of computers for personal reasons, unauthorized access to confidential files, and unlawful copying of copyrighted or licensed software (Associated Press, 1995). There were also problems such as computer based sexual harassment, pornography, copyright infringement and software piracy faced by many companies.
Szwergold's (1993) survey found that an overwhelming number of individuals reported uneasy feelings and concerns about technology-related problems. He found that 89% of the respondents felt that computers made it easier for someone to improperly obtain personal and confidential information on them; 76% suggested that because of computers, people have lost all control over how personal information is circulated; 69% noted that computers represent a threat to their personal privacy; and 66% indicated that there are not adequate safeguards to protect the privacy of personal information stored in computers.
Critical Ethical Issues Involving Technology
Privacy. Technology has enhanced and is capable of doing many things. Our privacy can be invaded by people with the information given. Many will take other people’s information by invading people’s privacy.
Accuracy. Due to the fact that these technologies are used to store a huge number of data and information, it is possible that unethical individuals or companies could manipulate or alter the real data. Therefore, data would not be accurate as before.
Ownership. Technology provides a larger bandwidth for communication. Computers and internet allow users to store or construct information in the internet. This will cause the concern of intellectual property and rights or whom the information and stuff belongs to.
Accessibility. The ability of computer that can store huge amounts of information, companies will store many private and confidential data. Assess to these data must be protected to prevent data from being stolen or from viruses.
These issues all lead to moral issues and that these problems would not occur if everyone is ethical and have moral values. Technology has brought us to a new era where we can live our lives differently in the assistance of these technologies and live in a better lifestyle. Therefore, good ethical behavior is encouraged in the society so that these problems will decrease in organizations and that these technologies can be used in an effective way to provide better quality lifestyle.
Reference:
Herschel, R. T & Andrews, P. H 1997,Ethical Implications of Technological Advances on Business Communication, Business Source Premier,Vol. 34 Issue 2, p160-170, DOI 9712194030, EbscoHost, viewed 5 September 2008.
I would like to talk about the privacy issues arise in RFID.
Through the innovation of new technologies, it brings a lot of benefit to people. RFID can help companies to improve supply chain efficiency and RFID doorways could scan every customer’s purchases automatically when they leave, which can eliminate tedious checkouts. While at home, RFID enable refrigerators to warn you about expired milk, generate weekly shopping list, even send signals to your TV so that you could see “personalized” commercials for things you have a history of buying. Sniffers in your microwave might read a chip-equipped TV dinner and cook it without instruction. There are many different uses of the technology of the RFID.
RFID is a beneficial technology that can improve business processes and speeding consumer transaction times. Many organizations are receiving benefit in using RFID. Hospitals use RFID to protect new born babies from kidnapping or accidental switching. Drug manufacturers are using RFID to protect consumers from counterfeit drugs that may contain inactive ingredients, improper dosages or be contaminated. RFID also helps in disease trace-back when it is used for livestock identification.
Unlike bar codes, which are identical for every unit of the same product, the RFID number transmitted is typically unique to each unit. Businesses aim to achieve cost reductions from better tracking of inventory through the supply chain. RFID are tiny and are becoming inexpensive enough for manufacturers to include in consumer items such as clothing, footwear, cosmetics and car tyres.
However, despite the advantages of RFID, RFID technology raises the privacy issue when its use enables other parties and organization to obtain consumers’ personally identifiable information which those parties would be unable or unauthorized to obtain it. Security concerns arise if unauthorized parties are able to obtain such information either from interception of the ID between tags and readers, through unauthorized reading of the tags, or via unauthorized access to the network or the database.
Retailers and manufacturers want to use the RFID to replace bar code for the purpose of tracking inventory. RFID allow trillions of objects to be uniquely identified. However, once a tagged item is associated with a particular individual, personal identifiable information will be obtained and then aggregated to develop a profile.
People start to worry that the technology will allow other users such as real-time tracking of customers in stores or even after they leave stores to misuse the information. Retailers or other organizations are able to track consumers even a consumer had purchased an item after a long period. For example, a tennis shoe manufacturer can scan a sporting event for the number of people wearing its product.
The unique ID in the clothes or other products which has bought could be read silently by any organization and associated with other people, allowing re-identification by that organization or by any other organization to which the data was sold. The organization doing the close watch need not necessary is the manufacturer or retailer. The information that are collected and used by marketers would probably the information that people would not want others to know about it.
Besides, if you make a purchase with a credit or loyalty card, the seller could link your identity with the RFID number of any tagged articles you are carrying and will use it later or even sell that information to other organizations. Vast databases of consumer would become available to telemarketers, government investigators or any other organization that we might not think of. This scenario must be avoided by ensuring that no RFID devices contaminate the consumers’ world.
New technologies are radically advancing our life, but they also enable unparalleled invasions of privacy. In order to protect privacy, any business selling a product to consumers which contain an RFID device should permanently disable them at the point of sale. Or the device should be attached with an explanatory warning tag that the consumer would typically remove before they use the product, such as the price tag on a cloth.
References:
Todd L, 2008, “Microchips Everywhere: a Future Vision”, The Seattle Times, viewed 4 September 2008, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004151388_apchippingamericaiii29.html?syndication=rss
Junk Busters 2005, “Radio Frequency ID Devices”, viewed 4 September 2008, http://www.junkbusters.com/rfid.html
Grant G, 2004, “RFID and privacy: Debate heating up in Washington”, InfoWorld, viewed 5 September 2008, http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/05/28/HNrfidprivacy_1.html
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