In the industrialized world, we’ve gone through many phases and iterations of innovation to reach the level of technological advancement we currently enjoy. It took well over a century, for example, to get from Alexander Graham Bell’s historic first telephone call to ubiquitous mobile phones and VoIP. And, indeed, in our societies, the old and the new are everywhere intertwined: we may use Blackberries and take genetically-targeted medications, but many of us still drink water delivered through victorian clay pipes and drive internal combustion automobiles over MacAdam roads. That’s not the case everywhere. In rural areas and emerging megacities across the Global South, basic services like telephone and power lines just don’t exist. This creates a new kind of opportunity: where even the most basic systems of telephony have never been introduced, for instance, it’s possible to skip the landlines altogether and jump straight to mobile phones — leapfrogging to the technological forefront. Leapfrogging has tremendous implications in terms of promoting development, facilitating access to medical care and educational tools, enabling new forms of local currency and credit, and transferring remittances around the world. It’s a means of sharing information and leveling the playing field between Global North and Global… (more)
(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Leapfrogging at 3:24 PM)
The first thing you’ll notice is our new podcast music, a bridge from your other audio files to the AutoblogGreen news. But what we’re really excited about it our interview with Gary Smyth, director of Powertrain Systems Research Lab at GM (interview transcript coming soon). We also try to figure out the recent green car news about the Spyder, the possible CAFE standards increase, and Smarts U.S. toe-dipping (which might be a bit of a cannonball). Whattya think?
Let's face it. Before 