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| Case Study Can Technology Catch You Having an Affair? Well, it may seem like an odd question… but when you think about it, technology certainly has the capability to aid in catching you having an affair? People could use technology to test your DNA. People could use a special form of technology (called a global positioning system) to track your movements. There are many ways actually. But how technology caught one man in Colorado having an affair was quite by accident. Commerce City, Colorado law enforcements officers installed automated photo radar systems at many intersections to catch people both speeding and running stop lights. As it turns out, a man ran a stop light, at which time a computer took two photos – one of the back of the car to capture the license plate and one of the front of the car to capture who was in the car. Guess what? The person in the car with the man was a woman with whom he was having an affair. If that wasn’t bad enough already, the system automatically generated a traffic violation ticket and sent it to the man’s house along with the photos. Can you imagine what would have happened had his wife opened the letter? Fortunately or unfortunately, the man got to the letter first, paid the ticket, and destroyed the evidence. Technology is certainly pervasive today, and often invasive. Even by accident, technology can creep into your life. And, by specific design, technology can monitor many of your actions. Utility programs on the Internet track your movements from one Web site to the next. You probably figured this out when you started receiving spam (unsolicited e-mail) from sites you’ve visited. The simple reality is that you cannot escape technology. Of course, we all hope other people are using technology for good reasons as opposed to bad. And our focus in this first chapter and throughout the book focuses on both the good and the bad in two ways. First, we want to introduce you to technology and all the good ways in which individuals and organizations can use it. Second, we want to turn the tables on occasion and alert you to the bad ways in which technology can be used. As we do, we’ll certainly tell you how to protect yourself, your information, and the technology you own. By the way, because of the potential of photo radar systems catching people having an affair, the Colorado legislature has introduced a new bill called the “adulterers amendment.” It still allows law enforcement agencies to use automated photo radar systems (a good use of technology in the eyes of many). But it protects the privacy of citizens by requiring that the photos be kept by the law enforcement agencies and shown only to the person receiving the ticket, hopefully thwarting a potentially bad use of the technology. Industry Perspective Teams Groove with Groove on the Internet Ray Ozzie – have you ever heard of him? Probably not, but may have heard of one of his software inventions, Lotus Notes. In 1995, IBM bought Lotus (the corporation) for $3.5 billion just so it could own Lotus Notes. To date, more than 68 million licenses of Lotus Notes have been sold. Lotus Notes is the typical groupware suite from a technical point of view. It contains a powerful group document database that organizes and manages all documents related to teams and their work. Ray’s newest software invention, Groove, isn’t. Groove works on the same basis as Napster. That is, Groove doesn’t require a central server on which the group document database would reside. Instead, Groove allows any member of a team to access the information on the computers of other team members. So, team members can easily work via the Internet in remote locations and easily share all types of digital information. As Bill Gates describes it, Groove is, “…a deep and innovative software product that is a great indicator of where the Internet is going.” It never hurts to have the endorsement of Bill Gates. Companies across all business sectors are lining up to use Groove. Some of those include:
Global Perspective Samsung Out Patents Its Japanese Competitors In 1970, Samsung Electronics, a Korean-based company, began making inexpensive 12” black-and-white televisions under the label of Sanyo. Today, Samsung is considered to be one of the top companies in the technology sector, as evidenced by its recent $16 billion deal with Dell Computer to provide components. And last year, Samsung ranked fifth worldwide in patents, behind only IBM, NEC, Canon, and Micron Technology. To put in another way, Samsung filed for more patents in that year than Matsushita, Sony, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, and Fujitsu. All of those are Japanese-based companies. But Samsung isn’t content with filing for more patents than its well-known Japanese competitors. Samsung wants to be seen worldwide as a provider of quality products. So, it spent $400 million in 2002 on stylish worldwide marketing campaigns. Even more so, Samsung is removing its products from discount chains such as Wal-Mart and Kmart and instead selling them in more upscale stores. Samsung is already among the elite in countries such as China and Russia. But it knows it must move west to the U.S. if it wants to be a true global competitor. Samsung wants to become Korea’s first well-known and well-respected global company. To do that, it will have to beat its Japanese-based competitors, but it will also have to prove itself to the American public. By creating partnerships with U.S. companies such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM, Samsung seems to well on its way. |