By Kim Tae-sub
In 2004, when the Korea IT Times was founded, mobile phone exports topped the list of goods exported, outdistancing those of semiconductors. That year, we also marked the 10th anniversary of the introduction of the super-speed Internet services and witnessed the number of Internet subscribers exceed the 30 million mark. Now, five years later, we are seeing the advent of the era of DMB and WiBro; a limited introduction of a real-name Internet registration system; and an explosive expansion of the PMP and mobile navigation device market. The era of IPTV has opened in earnest, with the introduction to the convergence of information and communication technologies (ICT) as momentum. Let me congratulate and give a big hand to all people in the information technologies (IT) industry who have done their best in the IT sector that has grown as a solid pillar of the entire science and technology industry despite worldwide economic difficulties.
Now the era of IT opportunities and challenges, which was led by information and innovation, is giving way to an era of emotional technologies (ET), when “emotion and enjoyment” in design technologies are valued. In the past, people wanted only sturdy products and delicious foods to challenge their own emotions. But now, consumers are attracted more to apparently unlikable items such as fragile and breakable goods and insipid foods. In other words, emotional marketing activities have led to ET opportunities and challenges, and “enjoyment” is playing a much bigger role in the market than prices.
KDC has succeeded in developing 3D business as an independent division just five years after it started the new project. The technology of handling realistic video communications is no different from the concept of ET. 3D films and videos, which are establishing themselves as a significant part of the LCD and plasma display technologies, have developed in a way that allows consumers to enjoy true-to-life visual programs, which is quite different from simply watching screens. Especially, Hollywood, the mecca of the film industry, has declared the opening of full-fledged 3D films. Japan has already started transmitting 3D broadcast programs through satellite networks.
Major global electronics home appliances makers have already finished developing 3D monitors, 3D mobile phones and 3D TV sets and have begun releasing them on the market. Especially, KDC, a Korean business group that has developed 3D film equipment for the second time in the world, has achieved an annual growth rate of more than 300 percent in this sector. Its sales in the sector of 3d films and videos alone are expected to reach W100 billion (approximately US$78 million) in 2010.
Thanks to the development of the Internet, society has become compartmentalized and the pleasure culture, which allows people to spend as much of their own time as possible, has apparently gained momentum. On the other hand, it is also true that people have further expanded their personal network through the Internet and have secured more free space for communications. In June 2009, Iran was swept up in turmoil over suspected election rigging. Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian woman, drew international mourners when shooting of her by a militia, during election protests in Iran in 2009, was captured on video by a bystander and broadcast over the internet. This is a vivid example showing what ubiquitous power the Internet has. Information technology, IT for short, and communications, and their development into emotional communications, culture and technologies are the reality in which we live in currently, as well as tasks that we should further develop in the future.
Henry Chesbrough, professor and executive director of the Center for Open Innovation at the Institute of Management, Innovation & Organization of the University of California at Berkeley, once said, “Open innovation is the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively. [This paradigm] assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as they look to advance their technology.”
Simply put, the concept of “open innovation” encompasses a variety of activities, such as joint corporate development, joint venture and open-source models which make the most of knowledge creation inside and outside the enterprise and market processes. “Open innovation” was implemented widely in the past. But in most cases, outside knowledge was used just once or played a simple role in merely supplementing inside knowledge. But today when “open innovation” is enforced, outside knowledge is treated as importantly as inside knowledge, and enterprises make consistent efforts to introduce outside knowledge and technologies and help inside knowledge and technologies advance into the market concurrently.
Now we want to develop the concept of “communications” from that of simple horizontal, vertical and parallel exchange of opinions to that of comprehensive exchange of ideas and capabilities to that of mutual development of technologies. We want to see small investments made through mutual communications to cultivate capabilities and achieve successes, and to see trust in such “transcendental” communications built between organizations, societies and countries. The effects of such communications can be explained through proactive communications among members of each organization or society. In this process, they can share success stories of advanced enterprises and have many of their grievances removed as they become motivated to engage in better communications.
“Interactive,” a term that is frequently used in the IT industry recently, signifies interactivities. The 3D video sector, on which KDC is concentrating its energies, also carries the meaning of interactive “communications.” 3D technologies have begun to be used in all industrial sectors, including knowledge, electronics, information, communications, culture and education. The development of these technologies is gaining pace, considering that they are producing new added values and additional industries as they are combined with those in other related industrial sectors, such as films, games, digital content, digital TV, advertisements, the Internet and mobile broadband, through outstanding interoperability and adaptability. The 3D video industry is drawing attention in the consumer market and expanding its market rapidly, most probably due to consumer’s greater demand for more true-to-life video programs and technological development of various multimedia devices. Accordingly, expert prediction that the future of information and communication depends on how to secure technologies of the Internet and digital content is now becoming a reality -- no longer a mere prediction.
