How smart is using smart phone??

Moore's Law states that the number of transistors packed into a single IC would double every 18 months!! Meaning, exponential advancement in memory and processing technology. An ordinary students's laptop todays holds more processing power than a mainframe did just 2 decades back. Smart-phones are becoming what laptops were to desktops a few years back.

With the advent of 4G technology along with higher and higher processing power smart phones are becoming everyones best friend..

Be it social networking or board meeting, people literally carry their work in their pocket. Now think of these smart-phones as 'little tiny mobile bill-boards'. Bill-boards that change themselves according to every individuals needs. The more people get accustomed to the perks of using a smart-phone the harder it is for them to revert back to ordinary phones. As the trends show the use of smart-phones is expected to double just in 2011. This makes smart-phone the next most ideal battle ground for marketeers.

The impact of such trends is already being felt in inconspicuous industries such as the printing industry. Even just a couple of years back security printing such boarding pass printing, Pin mailers etc were a lucrative industry. In today's paperless age where PIN numbers are sent through encrypted e-mails and boarding passes have reduced to a mere graphic image on ur smart-phone, commercial printing has taken a tough blow.

In mu opinion this is a change that has come about to stay. But like any other technological revolution the pros and cons interms of safety and impact on other industries is yet to be seen!

Boon or bane!!

Music piracy has a global strong hold immaterial of the type of governance or treasury balance! Unlike software piracy, where Developing countries steal software produced my developed countries. The stats are such

• US - music piracy annually costs 71,060 U.S. jobs lost and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues
• India - US$959 million and 571,896 jobs lost due to piracy

Governments pass laws day in and day out. These laws are then followed my amendments to accommodate the interests of lobbyists (freedom of expression etc etc). But since not all can be satisfied all the time the debate continues while piracy honeymoons around the world. For any law to be effective it has to enforced with ' Certainty, Severity and Celerity'. And a law that is not enforced is as good as not having one.

Though enforcements of agreements such as TRIPS, WIPO etc are relatively more effective in developed countries than in developing countries, piracy is still widespread. But in most cases the penalty for piracy are mere monetary fines (which are not generally formidable) and ridden with loop holes; hence rendering them ineffective.

Music piracy is a pandemic. As any pandemic, like AIDS, Environmental pollution or breast cancer the only effective way to curtail its spread is through awareness. An Indian saying goes 'Theft cannot be stopped unless all thieves decide to'. If people could be educated on the consequences of their actions it could go a long way in curbing household piracy.

Budding and struggling artists generally tend to view piracy as an effective short cut to instantly reach hordes. But this benefit is short lived. Once an artist gets the initial recognition it is the sales of the music which makes the artist truly successful.

This coupled with properly enforced laws could prove to to be the remedy we r looking for!