Picture Your TECHNOLOGY On Top. Read This And Make It So
For more on the debate about whether the Internet is “making us stupid,” visit ProCon.org. The use of basic technology is also a feature of non-human animal species. Tool use was once considered a defining characteristic of the genus Homo. This view was supplanted after discovering evidence of tool use among chimpanzees and other primates, dolphins, and crows. For example, researchers have observed wild chimpanzees using basic foraging tools, pestles, levers, using leaves as sponges, and tree bark or vines as probes to fish termites. West African chimpanzees use stone hammers and anvils for cracking nuts, as do capuchin monkeys of Boa Vista, Brazil.
We invite comments and collaboration to progress these initial ideas. As the sources of competition—and growth—shift toward disruptive innovation and intangibles, a winner-takes-most dynamic emerges in which scale, speed, and established tech ecosystems are increasingly vital. A changing geopolitical landscape complicates and deepens that challenge. Corporate Europe’s long-standing weakness in tech is ever more evident in today’s figures. This gap has long been considered a result of specialization and competitive advantage elsewhere—that Europe is strong in other sectors such as chemicals, materials, and fashion, for instance—meaning that the weakness is therefore not something to worry about. …