Theo S. Eicher and Thomas Strobel present an industry-level account of the recent changes in German productivity growth and compare the trends to Europe and the US. The specific focus is on how differential investments in information and communication technologies (ICT) affected the economic performance of these economies. Not all industrialized countries shared the economic fortunes that ICT presented to the US economy. While the US experienced successive accelerations in its trend growth in 1995 and again in 2000, Germany experienced dual reductions in labor productivity growth. Some European economies fared better and others even worse than Germany. Since productivity is the ultimate determinant of living standards, the authors examine the sources of these productivity differentials. They also present a new German growth accounting database that utilizes unique ICT investment data, sourced directly from the industries, to place their findings into an international context. This book is targeted at economists and policymakers alike, and is designed to provide clear guidance for those interested in industrial policy and statistical account methods.

About the series: Technology builders, entrepreneurs, consultants, academicians, and futurists from around the world share their wisdom in The Future of the Internet surveys conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and Elon University. The series of surveys garners smart, detailed assessments of multi-layered issues from a variety of voices, ranging from the scientists and engineers who created the first Internet architecture a decade ago to social commentators to technology leaders in corporations, media, government, and higher education. Among the respondents are people affiliated with many of the world's top organizations, including IBM, AOL, Microsoft, Intel, ICANN, the Internet Society, Google, W3C, Internet2, and Oracle; Harvard, MIT, and Yale; and the Federal Communications Commission, FBI, U.S. Census Bureau, Social Security Administration, and U.S. Department of State. They provide significant and telling responses to questions about the future of government, education, media, entertainment, commerce, and more. They foresee continuing conflicts over control of networked communications and the content produced and shared online. They also predict the major changes ahead for everyone in every field of endeavor. Hopes and Fears: The Future of the Internet, Volume 2 The 2006 Future of the Internet II survey asked its participants to react to variety of networked information technology scenarios related to national boundaries, human languages, artificial intelligence and other topics. Among the questions implicit in the scenarios were: Will more people choose to live "off the grid"? Will autonomous machines leave people out of the loop? Will English be the lingua franca? Will national boundaries be displaced by new groupings? Among the themes in the predictions: Continued serious erosion of individual privacy; the improvement of virtual reality and rising problems tied to it; greater economic opportunities in developing nations; changes in languages; the rise of autonomous machines that operate beyond human control.

Dozens of cases worldwide continue to challenge Microsoft Corporation's superdominance of the global digital network economy, focusing in particular on the multi-tying practices that leverage Microsoft's market power into adjacent markets and reinforce its dominance. This is the first book to analyze this international line of cases, detailing both grounds for legal action (including unfair competition, restriction of consumers' freedom of choice, abusive pricing) as well as Microsoft's defenses and administrative settlements. The author also demonstrates the serious economic repercussions of Microsoft's monopoly, such as accumulation of inefficiency and stifling of innovation in this crucial sector of twenty-first century economy and society.Through an in-depth analysis of the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) case - which led to a December 2005 decision, currently under appeal at the Seoul High Court, condemning three fundamental tying practices embedded in Microsoft's global business strategy - the author clearly establishes the precise nature of Microsoft's anticompetitive practices, complete with clear technical descriptions of the underlying applications and digital media systems. The discussion develops valuable guidelines on such core issues as the following: network effect, tipping effect, and lock-in effect; separability of Microsoft's tied and tying products; forced purchase by consumers of multiple tied products; Microsoft's reinforcement of market entry barriers; Microsoft's "normal business practice" defense; and cumulative damage to consumers' interests.The book's ultimate legal and economic assessment clarifies ways in which government competition authorities can select from globally available options on a case-by-case basis, enforce re-pricing measures, avoid belated remedies, and continuously monitor new types of anticompetitive conduct.In its analytic rigor, focus on important economic issues, and its unwavering commitment to fair competition, this book will be of immeasurable value to practitioners and policymakers at every level concerned with the digital network economy, now and in the years to come.

Two guys named Steve, working in a garage, created a prototype computer designed to be different in a way no one thought possible: It would be easy to use. Those two Steves, one now a billionaire and still at the head of Apple, not only succeeded with that product, but they also broke ground in the business world in ways few thought possible: They proved you could not only have fun at work, but pursuing a capitalist dream could be hip. How did Apple do it? How did it go from making computers that made a difference but not much of a dent in the overall market to creating a device (the iPod) and a music service (iTunes) that has changed the way we buy and experience music? And how did the MacIntosh and its successors capture the hearts and minds of computer users so deeply that being a "Mac person" makes you a member of a special club? That's what this book is all about. As author Jason D. O'Grady shows, Apple is a rare company--one that is not afraid to think about a future that does not exist and turn it into reality. Critics have written Apple off time and again, yet it rises from the ashes to astound the critics and delight its customers. That's not luck or happenstance--it's vision, dedication, and persistence. Besides delighting Apple aficionados, this book will inspire students eager to launch a business career or work in the technology sector. Apple has never been afraid to chart its own path, and readers will learn what makes the company tick. This stimulating book: --Explains the importance of the company and the essential disruptions that changed business forever (think iPod).--Details Apple's origins and history. --Presents biographies of the founders and the historical contextin which they launched the company. --Explains Apple's strategies and innovations. --Assesses Apple's impact on society, technology, processes, and methods. --Shows how Apple beat the competition in selected markets. --Details financial results over the years. --Predicts Apple's future prospects and successes. In addition, O'Grady offers special features that include a look at the colorful people associated with Apple, interesting trivia, an Apple time line, a focus on products, and where the company is headed. Apple--a company that changed, and is changing, the world.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. Presenting rigorous and original research, this volume offers key insights into the historical, cultural, social, economic and political forces at play in the creation of world-class ICT innovations in Kenya. Following the arrival of fiber-optic cables in 2009, Digital Kenya examines why the initial entrepreneurial spirit and digital revolution has begun to falter despite support from motivated entrepreneurs, international investors, policy experts and others. Written by engaged scholars and professionals in the field, the book offers 15 eye-opening chapters and 14 one-on-one conversations with entrepreneurs and investors to ask why establishing ICT start-ups on a continental and global scale remains a challenge on the "Silicon Savannah". The authors present evidence-based recommendations to help Kenya to continue producing globally impactful ICT innovations that improve the lives of those still waiting on the side-lines, and to inspire other nations to do the same.

As web applications play a vital role in our society, social media has emerged as an important tool in the creation and exchange of user-generated content and social interaction. The benefits of these services have entered in the educational areas to become new means by which scholars communicate, collaborate, and teach. Social Media and the New Academic Environment: Pedagogical Challenges provides relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest research on social media and its challenges in the educational context. This book is essential for professionals aiming to improve their understanding of social media at different levels of education, as well as researchers in the fields of e-learning, educational science, information and communication sciences, and much more.

This book examines the reasons why various groups around the world choose not to adopt broadband services and evaluates strategies to stimulate the demand that will lead to increased broadband use. It introduces readers to the benefits of higher adoption rates while examining the progress that developed and emerging countries have made in stimulating broadband demand. By relying on concepts such as a supply and demand gap, broadband price elasticity, and demand promotion, this book explains differences between the fixed and mobile broadband demand gap, introducing the notions of substitution and complementarity between both platforms. Building on these concepts, 'Driving Demand for Broadband Networks and Services' offers a set of best practices and recommendations aimed at promoting broadband demand. The broadband demand gap is defined as individuals and households that could buy a broadband subscription because they live in areas served by telecommunications carriers but do not do so because of either economic, limited awareness, or lack of digital literacy reasons. This grouping represents a range from 30% of the population in the US, 40% in Germany, and over 80% in most emerging countries. Research indicates that broadband usage is critical for social development, economic performance, and overall welfare and so it behoves governments to encourage demand. This study is the first of its kind to address the demand side of broadband diffusion, incorporating an economic analysis while offering real world examples of policies and initiatives that have successfully spurred demand in developed and emerging markets alike. This book is intended for policy makers, managers of telecommunications and other technology companies, as well as academics and graduate students in the areas of public policy, economic development, and technology management. This book is an eye-opener for policy makers. Traditionally ICT policy has focused on the supply side. Katz and Berry develop great ideas to leapfrog Internet penetration from the demand side, where the value of the Internet is. - Diego Molano Vega, Minister of Information Technologies and Communications of Colombia This book is an instant classic. It brilliantly and convincingly lays out the case why dealing with inadequate internet penetration has moved from the creation of supply to one of encouraging demand. It provides an information-rich and well-written presentation of the factors holding back people from becoming users, and offers a hugely valuable survey of the various programs around the world to make the broadband internet truly useful to people everywhere. It is the kind of book writers in this field will use constantly. - Eli Noam, Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School This new study by Katz and Berry examines the rationale for national broadband plans and the evidence for their success in driving demand. It presents the latest data on broadband in a range of case study countries, and provides best practice advice for policy-makers and development practitioners. - Dr Tim Kelly, Lead ICT Policy Specialist, World Bank

Unruly Media argues that we're on the crest of a new international, intermedial style in which sonic and visual parameters become heightened and accelerated. This audiovisual turn, driven by digital technologies and socioeconomic changes, calls for new forms of attention. Post-classical cinema, with its multi-plot narratives and flashy style, fragments under the influence of audiovisual numbers and music-video-like sync. Music video, after migrating to the web, becomes more than a way of selling songs. YouTube's brief and low-res clips encompass many forms, and foreground reiteration, graphic values and affective intensity. All three of these media are riven by one another: a trajectory from YouTube through music video to the new digital cinema reveals structural commonalities, especially in the realms of rhythm, texture and form. Music video, YouTube, and postclassical cinema remain undertheorized. This is the first book to account for the current audiovisual landscape across medium and platform-to try to characterize the audiovisual swirl. Unruly Media includes both new theoretical models and readings of numerous current multimedia works. It also includes several chapters devoted to the oeuvre of highly popular directors, their films, commercials and music videos. Unruly Media argues that attending equally to soundtrack and image can show how these media work, and the ways they both mirror and shape our modern experience.

New communication technologies have reshaped media and politics. But who are the new power players? The Hybrid Media System is a sweeping new theory of how political communication now works. Politics is increasingly defined by organizations, groups, and individuals who are best able to blend older and newer media logics, in what Andrew Chadwick terms a hybrid system. Power is wielded by those who create, tap, and steer information flows to suit their goals and in ways that modify, enable, and disable the power of others, across and between a range of older and newer media. By examining this system in flow, Chadwick reveals its complex balance of power. From American presidential campaigns to WikiLeaks, from live prime ministerial debates to hotly-contested political scandals, from the daily practices of journalists, campaign workers, and bloggers to the struggles of new activist organizations, the clash of media logics causes chaos and disintegration but also surprising new patterns of order and integration. With a new preface and chapter, the fully updated second edition applies the conceptual framework of the hybrid system to the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the rise of Donald Trump, illustrating the ways individuals blend new and old media systems to obtain political power.

This book presents unique insights and advice on defining and managing the innovation transformation journey. Using novel ideas, examples and best practices, it empowers management executives at all levels to drive cultural, technological and organizational changes toward innovation. Covering modern innovation techniques, tools, programs and strategies, it focuses on the role of the latest technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence to discover, handle and manage ideas), methodologies (including Agile Engineering and Rapid Prototyping) and combinations of these (like hackathons or gamification). At the same time, it highlights the importance of culture and provides suggestions on how to build it. In the era of AI and the unprecedented pace of technology evolution, companies need to become truly innovative in order to survive. The transformation toward an innovation-led company is difficult - it requires a strong leadership and culture, advanced technologies and well-designed programs. The book is based on the author's long-term experience and novel ideas, and reflects two decades of startup, consulting and corporate leadership experience. It is intended for business, technology, and innovation leaders.

Fortnite has re-emerged from the black hole for Chapter 2! The 100% Unofficial Fortnite Annual 2021 is the perfect Christmas gift for gamers. It includes the best skins, emotes and accessories, as well as a round-up of the most impressive vehicles, the best sports mini games, builds and escape rooms in Creative, plus tips for the best attack and defence strategies and much more.

'Internet development dynamics are tackled in this Handbook by leading scholars representing mainstream, institutional, evolutionary economics and political economy perspectives. They show how complex markets for digital technologies and services are evolving. Crucially, they demonstrate why conventional analytical tool kits need to be extended by bridging disciplinary boundaries. This volume offers significant advances in the analysis of technological and institutional change and demonstrates how important it is to acknowledge conflict resolution and tradeoffs as essential aspects of the internet's history and its future.' -Robin Mansell, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK The Internet is connecting an increasing number of individuals, organizations, and devices into global networks of information flows. It is accelerating the dynamics of innovation in the digital economy, affecting the nature and intensity of competition, and enabling private companies, government, and the non-profit sector to develop new business models. In this new ecosystem many of the theoretical assumptions and historical observations upon which economics rests are altered and need critical reassessment. This Handbook brings together twenty-six original chapters that discuss theoretical and applied frameworks for the study of the economics of the Internet, encompassing: its unique economics as a global information and communications infrastructure the effects of the Internet on economic transactions, including social production, advertising, innovation, and intellectual property rights the economics and management of Internet-based industries, such as search, news, entertainment, culture, and virtual worlds the effects of the Internet on the economy at large Interdisciplinary in its approach, the Handbook synthesizes the state of knowledge and offers new perspectives for researchers, practitioners, and students. Contributors: S. Aggarwal, C. Antonelli, H. Asghari, J.M. Bauer, S. Bauer, Y. Benkler, S.M. Besen, I. Brown, E. Castronova, D.D. Clark, C. Corrado, C. Feijoo, D.L. Garcia, J.-L. Gomez-Barroso, C. Handke, J. Haucap, K. Hollnbuchner, N. Just, G. Knieps, I. Knowles, J.J. Kranz, L. Kung, M. Latzer, W.H. Lehr, Y.-L. Liu, W. Ma, P. Mazepa, V. Mosco, N. Newman, E.M. Noam, P.P. Patrucco, R.G. Picard, A. Picot, G. Sadowsky, F. Saurwein, V. Schneider, S.J. Schultze, R. Sherman, P. Stepan, T. Stuhmeier, R. Towse, B. Van Ark, M. Van Eeten, B. Van Schewick, H.R. Varian, D. Waterman, R.S. Whitt, S.S. Wildman, S. Wunsch-Vincent

This book examines the adverse effects of complexity, information asymmetries, transaction costs, and uncertainty on investors' decision making. It suggests mitigating those effects using appropriate and matching signals, and analyzes a sample of 903 German startups to quantitatively highlight the distinct financing patterns and characteristics of high-tech startups. It then investigates the reasons for these patterns on the basis of a qualitative study that includes 34 interviews with investors and entrepreneurs in the US and Germany and an international expert panel. Lastly, it presents a framework that matches complexity factors with appropriate productive signals.

This book examines the challenges faced by seven multinational companies - Intel, Lenovo, Samsung Electronics, ZTE, BMW Hyundai Motor Company, Mahindra and Mahindra - in their endeavour to contribute to the economic, environmental and social development of Asia. The lessons learned from the examination of these business practices may directly contribute to an increase in the practice of sustainable management and may as such contribute to positive economic, environmental and social impact of companies in this region. The cases are highly relevant for management theoreticians seeking to deepen our understanding of corporate sustainability in an area where scholars, practitioners and policy-makers can expect new questions, problems and challenges in the years ahead. The book is also of high interest to policy review agencies, policy makers and welfare economists seeking to support the development of a comprehensive sustainability framework for managing social and environmental issues in the context of Asia.

This is the first book that sheds light on global game industries and cultural policy. The scope covers the emerging and converging theory and models on cultural industries and its development, and their connection to national cultural policy and globalization. The primary focus of the book is on Asian cultural policy and industries while there are implicit comparisons throughout the book to compare Asia to other global markets. This book is aimed at advanced undergraduates, graduate students and faculty members in programs addressing cultural policy and digital games. It will also be of interest to those within the cultural policy community and to digital games professionals.

In internet of things (IoT) applications, wireless connectivity is a key factor, particularly those that need to be in transition, or where wired communication is not effective or practicable. For top-notch connectivity of the Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) standard, the 900MHz frequency is generally used by most of the vendors. The radiation quality not only depends on the antenna geometry but on immediate surroundings. Additionally, the IoT product itself and the user of the product can strongly affect the resulting radiation pattern and other characteristics of the antenna. On the other hand, a suitable antenna should also have high efficiency and adequate bandwidth covering the desired frequency range. To take these effects into consideration, the whole IoT product must be included in the antenna simulations. Antenna Design for Narrowband IoT: Design, Analysis, and Applications provides the antenna design concept for narrowband internet of things applications, performs a detailed analysis of the antenna, and discusses the various antenna design concepts and structures. Covering a range of topics such as antenna design and antenna measurement systems, this book is ideal for industry professionals, research scholars, academicians, professors, and students.