Many years ago, the German philosopher
The "third industrial revolution" is characterized by men becoming the "raw material" of their own industries. Product and producer, production and consumption, technology and nature are no longer meaningful pairs of opposites. The third is also the last revolution, as it is difficult to think of further revolutions when the distinction between subject and object becomes blurred. The world is becoming a Bestand and the human body and mind are no protected zones. They are something like the last safety zone of human being which is now itself becoming a basis for technological innovation. When the subject is weakened by its technical environment, the use of technical crooks for body and mind becomes an obvious "solution", even if the technically strengthened subject is strengthened at the cost of no longer being a "subject" in the traditional, metaphysical sense. Biological processes are dissected and subjected to technical control. This technical control is technical in two senses: it is not only control through technology but by ttechnology itsself, since it is not carried out by unaided human minds, but increasingly by intelligent machines.
The point where this Andersian third industrial revolution reaches an unprecedented logic seems to lie within the realm of genetic engeneering. This example shows that the dissection of humanness - the decoding of genetic information - is tantamount to commodification. The purpose of the commercial genetic research projects is the use of genetic information as a resource for the development of new products, e.g. in pharmaceutics. Genetic products carry the promise of offering a solution to so-far uncurable diseases such as cancer, Alzeheimer, heart disorders, schizophrenia, and others, but they also open up the possibility of "breaking the chains of evolution", of actively manipulating the genetic structure of human beings and of "designing" healthy, long-living, beautiful, hard-working etc. beings. Here, the homo creator and the homo materia finally become indistinguishable and we are being to merge with our products in such a way that it "we" loses the remains of its meaning.
Since 1990 research on human genetics is organised in the
But exactly this patentising is of paramount importance in the emerging "post-industrial" society where knowledge becomes the most important resource. A patent is nothing else than a property title to a piece of "know-how", and an necessary consequence commodification. When life no longer simply a natural creation but a product, it, too, will be patented and becomes a commodity.
Against the idea of the human genome as a public good, or an "open source", there is a growing competion on the part of private industry. Companies such as
But the commodification of life is not limited ot the human species. Genetically altered animals and plants are also suffering the same fate, and in most industrialised nations it is now possible to patent genetically engeneered species and crops. The promises of the "Green Revolution" of the 1960s are now repeated in the genetic revolution. Genetic engeneering, so it is argued, will be able to breed animals and plants which resist disease and yield more "food" and will therfore help to tackle problems of undernutrition and starvation. Companies such as
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One of the most crucial issues in on-line advertising is the blurring of the line between editorial content and ads. Unlike on TV and in the print media, where guidelines on the labeling of advertisements, which shall enable the customer to distinguish between editorial and ads, exist, similar conventions have not yet evolved for Internet content. Labeling of online advertisement up to now has remained the rare exception, with only few sites (e.g.
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Although Internet advertising only really started in 1994, revenues showed a steady and fast growth. In 1997 US$ 906.5 million were spent on on-line advertising. Compared with advertising revenue for the television industry in equivalent dollars for its third year, the Internet was slightly ahead, at US$ 907 million compared to television's US$ 834 million. 1998 on-line advertising grew by 112 percent to US$ 1.92 billion in revenues, and is on track to hit US$ 4 billion in 1999, which would put Internet advertising at about 2 percent of the U.S. ad market.
Table: Spending on On-Line Advertising by Category
(first quarter 1999)
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Table: Types of On-Line Advertising
(first quarter 1999)
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Source: Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).
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1904
First broadcast talk
1918
Invention of the short-wave radio
1929
Invention of television in Germany and Russia
1941
Invention of microwave transmission
1946
Long-distance coaxial cable systems and mobile telephone services are introduced in the USA.
1957
First data transmissions over regular phone circuits.
At the beginning of the story of today's global data networks is the story of the development of
In 1955 President Eisenhower announced the USA's intention to launch a satellite. But it in the end it was the Soviet Union, which launched the first satellite in 1957: Sputnik I. After Sputnik's launch it became evident that the Cold War was also a race for leadership in the application of state-of-the-art technology to defense. As the US Department of Defense encouraged the formation of high-tech companies, it laid the ground to Silicon Valley, the hot spot of the world's computer industry.
The same year as the USA launched their first satellite - Explorer I - data was transmitted over regular phone circuits for the first time, thus laying the ground for today's global data networks.
Today's satellites may record weather data, scan the planet with powerful cameras, offer global positioning and monitoring services, and relay high-speed data transmissions. Yet up to now, most satellites are designed for military purposes such as reconnaissance.
1969
ARPAnet was the small network of individual computers connected by leased lines that marked the beginning of today's global data networks. An experimental network it mainly served the purpose of testing the feasibility of
In 1969 ARPANET went online and linked the first two computers, one located at the University of California, Los Angeles, the other at the Stanford Research Institute.
Yet ARPAnet did not become widely accepted before it was demonstrated in action to a public of computer experts at the First International Conference on Computers and Communication in Washington, D. C. in 1972.
Before it was decommissioned in 1990,
In the USA it was already in 1994 that commercial users outnumbered military and academic users.
Despite the rapid growth of the Net, most computers linked to it are still located in the United States.
1971
Invention of
1979
Introduction of
1992
Launch of the
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Nadia Thalman is director of
Developed under the auspices of
b., March 3, 1847, Edinburgh
d. Aug. 2, 1922, Beinn Bhreagh, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada
American audiologist and inventor wrongly remembered for having invented the telephone in 1876. Although Bell introduced the first commercial application of the telephone, in fact a German teacher called Reiss invented it.
For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/1/0,5716,15411+1+15220,00.html
AT&T Corporation provides voice, data and video communications services to large and small businesses, consumers and government entities. AT&T and its subsidiaries furnish domestic and international long distance, regional, local and wireless communications services, cable television and Internet communications services. AT&T also provides billing, directory and calling card services to support its communications business. AT&T's primary lines of business are business services, consumer services, broadband services and wireless services. In addition, AT&T's other lines of business include network management and professional services through AT&T Solutions and international operations and ventures. In June 2000, AT&T completed the acquisition of MediaOne Group. With the addition of MediaOne's 5 million cable subscribers, AT&T becomes the country's largest cable operator, with about 16 million customers on the systems it owns and operates, which pass nearly 28 million American homes. (source: Yahoo)
Slogan: "It's all within your reach"
Business indicators:
Sales 1999: $ 62.391 bn (+ 17,2 % from 1998)
Market capitalization: $ 104 bn
Employees: 107,800
Corporate website: