Welcome to this week’s Technology Updates, a vibrant mix of hot topics and future trends.

The future is here…. Estonia is leading the way. Hungary not so much.

Estonia has made it clear; the country is open for business. Estonia is offering anybody to become an “e-Estonian”. Once your identity is established, you will have the access to banking, education, and government services, amongst other benefits of being a citizen. You can securely store and share documents, digitally sign contracts, and register your business. Short of voting, you’ll be able to do everything as any native Estonian. According to the information, the Estonian government was able to shorten their weekly meeting from 4-5 hours to 30-90 minutes, by using the e-Cabinet. Any decision is sent directly to the interested parties the moment the decision has been made.

It is worthwhile to visit the official website –> http://g3t.ca/3xha1k and read about the future. Warning: While visiting the website, you might see strange associations between words and pictures. The artistic directors chose a sheep herder that is checking his iPad to demonstrate the value of e-Government; a smiling man, in a Winnie the Poo costume while getting ticketed from a police officer, is promoting e-Police; an elderly man falling from a scooter is the poster-child for e-Health; (and my favourite) three, almost naked, men in a sauna pointing at a monitor with caption – ‘Technology creates fertile soil for development’.

This sets Estonia in a stark contrast with Hungary. This week, we saw the introduction, of a revenue starved Hungarian government, of the Internet tax. The mass demonstration followed, forced the government to first create a cap for the amount charged and later the complete withdrawal of the proposal. Message to the Hungarian government; take notes from the Estonians. “Technology creates fertile soil for development.”

You can read more here -> http://g3t.ca/utku4N

Trending this week…

This week brought us some interesting, note-worthy articles and news:

  • Tired of Facebook’s constant invasion of your privacy and too much advertising? Try Diaspora, the open source Social Networking site –> http://g3t.ca/Fcmunm
  • Bad week for space business. First, the Antares rocket explosion, then the crash of Virgin Galactic Space Ship Two. Sadly one person dead, one severely injured. –> http://g3t.ca/Pf59Ni
  • HP showed its new 3D printer. It will take them till 2016 to release it to the public. Hopefully the print materials will be cheaper than the inkjet and toner cartridges. —> http://g3t.ca/8bExDc
  • Google is developing a cancer detector. It aims to create a monitoring technology to detect early occurrence of symptoms. Good for Google. –>http://g3t.ca/vZtGjw
  • Is your website powered by Drupal? There is a severe security hole. You should apply the latest patches. Even then, you might be late and a thorough clean up is required. (Let me know, I can help) –> http://g3t.ca/kL2q1U
  • And lastly, a few more stories about the White House getting hacked, Twitter’s sliding fortune despite customer growth, and software, which can predict gang violence are here –> http://g3t.ca/CgcHZF

The past future is here…

In case you missed any of the past issues. Here is the complete archive: http://g3t.ca/GB1jPs