Posted by Always remember: it’s not about the technology. It’s about access.
People worry too much about the technology. Forget about the technology (sorry to those of you in IT). Instead, think about the access that the Internet has brought to our world. Beyond that, think about how mobile and touch is now giving even more people access. This very short TED Talk (under 6 minutes) demonstrates what happens when you use technology not to replicate an experience, but to supplement it (as Amit Sood – the head of Art Project at Google says) and to make it accessible to anyone, everywhere regardless of socio-economic class.
It’s not what you think.
Too many people today think that technology is about how many friends and followers you have. It’s not. Technology is (and will always be) about imagination, creativity and inspiration. Think about what this one project from Google may do to inspire the next generation of innovators. Think about what it means when you can access and have an experience like this, anywhere in the world.
It is inspiring.
Never another podcast episode or article 
Access is a very broad word – and for millions of us it has a particular meaning that is more focused – the “access” on this nice video is the inclusion of quality captioning – not only for mega millions globally who watch this on the Internet in different languages, but also for millions of us globally who need real time speech to text translation (captioning (1 in 7 people everywhere) due to hearing differences.
Thanks TED and google for working on quality captioning inclusion – getting there with human input!
ls/ccac, http://www.ccacaptioning.org, all volunteers, join us also to add your voice
I totally agree, totally not about the tools they are merely the means to an end. It’s about creating an idea, working with other people to make it happen, and changing an experience for just one person. I’m so thrilled that commercial companies like google see the value in ‘enhancing’ the online experience for the everyday person anywhere on the planet, thank you!
I was listening to PBS the other day and also heard about another wonderful project from the US Library of Congress and the University of California – the National Jukebox project, which allows online streaming access to over 10,000 historical recordings: http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/
Let’s hope more governments, universities, associations and companies collaborate on incredible projects like this. What an amazing online experience we would have access to at the click of a button, connection of a device etc, and what a great world we would live in despite socio-economic status.
I really like the idea that such treasures of humankind are accessible to everybody, anywhere.
Anywhere? Well that’s not entirely true. Some countries prohibit some internet access, and for example here is Malaysia I can’t access Amazon’s kindle books. Hopefully governments will realize that in the Fourth Revolution, access to these services has more upside than downside – and that if they don’t grant it, their economy is at stake on the long term.