Economic Aspects
A lot of market survey companies and consulting firms forecasted a rosy economy in 2015 boosted by growing usage and applications of the Internet. However, the Internet does not have so much impact on our economy in 2015.
Actually, as of 2015, almost all companies and consumers have experienced E-commerce and M-commerce because security on the Internet was enhanced and mobile communication devices became reliable. However, though use of E-commerce and M-commerce prevailed, usage is still an extension of the initial use in 2005. Though many companies shifted order placement or payment transaction to web-based E-commerce system, many consumers stick to actual shopping at actual stores for many items excpt some transactions like banking activities.
Companies such as GAP, UNIQLO or Levis created web-sites for consumers to experience virtual reality with their clothes, but customers prefer shops to actually try clothes on. Part of the reason is that the technology to realise virtual reality is not well advanced. Many companies have tried to develop the technology such as smell generators, but those items have not yet prevailed.
Additionally, relatively cooling economic growth in China and stagnated internal consumption in US have negative impact on companies’ profitability. China especially faces serious energy crisis because of its shortage of crude oil. China has been running out of domestic oil resources and continues futureless dispute on potential offshore oil fields around borders between Japan, Vietnam and Taiwan. The tensions caused by energy crisis constrain growth in the world economy.
In the context of the tensions caused by growing consumption of oil in China, crude oil price hit record high recently. This is another constraint for further growth of world economy.
The economic slump of both leading markets is not so critical for telecommunication companies and electronics companies, but they do not afford to invest huge money for development of new technology for, among other aspects, virtual reality. Instead, they gear down further investment new technology because they need to collect money that invested to install 3G technology around the world. It is said that the use of 3G services will pick up soon, but it takes time to return to profitability in 3G related businesses. One of the drawing cards from electronic appliance makers are smart home electric appliances that can communicate with mobile tools. Sony introduced walkman-refrigerator, walkman-washing machine or walkman-electric fan, but no consumers want to control such smart appliances through mobile phones. Regrettably, they are still struggling to create new market of smart home appliances.
Some important technologies like voice recognition system developed gradually in the past 10 years. Some of them have adopted in Internet, but neither of them succeeded to realise drastic change in Internet usage. Voice recognition systems succeeded in making key board obsolete for mobile tools, but still need further development to recognise conversation among multiple people.
Voice recognitions system actually enabled the Internet to store a lot of information directly through speeches. Information markets are picking up slowly, but the system to deal with huge information through direct voice recognition system is not yet developed. Additionally, governmental restrictions on the flow of information is enhanced to tackle terorrism. The regulations set by governments tend to constrain development of information markets. New technologies such as artificial intelligence or artificial neural networks are designed to convert huge information through voice recognition system to consistent knowledge, but again, companies do not have enough financial resources as of 2015.
The WTO agreed to lift the ban of gambling business on the Internet a couple of years ago. However, consumers prefer face to face gambling with dealers in Las Vegas, Monaco and in illegal basements. So, Internet gambling is only used by some gamble addiction people. Some companies hosting Internet gambling think virtual reality could bring about drastic changes in Internet gambling, but as explained already, companies do not have the resources for further development right now.
Overall, the situation for the Internet in 2015 is more or less similar to that in 2005. There are many forecasts for applications and technologies available in the future, but no one knows how soon they will become available and how much people will utilise them. Many companies become sceptical of the rosy Internet future, resulting in less investment for further development of technologies.
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