Davos: The Old and New; Eric Schmidt and Emma Watson

Despite the fact that most news headlines say "The Internet will Disappear" according to Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman was in fact elaborating on the fact that the internet will dramatically change from its current primitive state to becoming something of a technologically advanced seamless part of our lives Chris Matyszczyk CNet article here

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2525914/thumbs/o-ERIC-SCHMIDT-570.jpg?5

Mashable explains that Eric Schmidt didn't predict the end of the internet, he instead said that “there will be so many IP addresses, so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with that you won’t even sense it". These statements were made by Google's Eric Schmidt on a panel titled "The Future of the Digital Economy." at the World Economic Forum at Davos. He also said: "It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room. A highly personalized, highly interactive and very, very interesting world emerges."

In "The Business Insider" Jim Edwards tells us that, according to Schmidt, Google's dominance as one of the main companies on the world wide web may also have to give way to new platforms, like the smaller tech businesses for apps in the mobile world. "On the question  of dominance, you now see so many strong tech platforms coming through and you're seeing a reordering, and a future reordering, of the leaders because of the rise of the app on the smartphone."

It seems the virtual world and the real world will be evolving into the one world of the future.

In the meantime, Emma Watson also made an appearance at Davos by addressing the leaders and continuing her "HeforShe" campaign for women's rights and gender equality. She was named Feminist Celebrity of 2014. For more details and photos see this Daily Mail article
 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2923317/This-bring-end-inequalities-girls-women-face-globally-Emma-Watson-addresses-leaders-World-Economic-Forum-new-Women-campaign.html

Virtually Everywhere

Technology, space, time and everything in between...countless opinions either in favour of this digitalized world or against it but the question of whether it is one of the most fascinating phenomenons of our time must indubitably have an affirmative reply. Just as much as the online world kept me in awe as can be read in my posts in 2009 so does it keep me amazed now.

We do not need to move in the physical space in order to be present at any event. Par example, the Large Hadron Collider exhibition at the Science Museum in London was easily accessible via live-stream, courtesy of The Guardian where we could enjoy the company of both Professor Higgs in the morning and Stephen Hawking in the afternoon. http://www.theguardian.com/science/video/2013/nov/12/stephen-hawking-large-hadron-collider-live-stream-video?CMP=twt_gu

We could also view a cool photo of them both on @sciencemuseum's Twitter page: http://twitter.com/sciencemuseum/status/400675840775565312

But if the value and beauty of women in science were topics of interest to us we were able to hop over to Brussels and take a look at the inauguration of the "Science needs Women" photo exhibition held at the European Parliament http://twitter.com/4womeninscience/status/400400078516801536 or to travel to Moscow, Russia to see the nominees for L'Oreal's Women in Science awards http://twitter.com/4womeninscience/status/400307121771642880

All this on November 12, 2013, in one day!

Also the National Science Foundation was live-tweeting from the Gender Summit in Washington on the following day  http://twitter.com/NSF/status/400660834919018496

So thanks to our digital presence it is this facile today to be virtually anywhere and everywhere.

The Suit and Tie Conundrum

I have just read a very good article featured in the Daily Beast by Alizah Salario entitled "Daily Woes for Women in Tech" http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/11/19/dating-in-the-stem-fields-can-women-in-science-be-sexy-and-successful.html
Women in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) are faced with what Eileen Pollack  http://nytimes.com/2013/10/06/magazine/why-are-there-still-so-few-women-in-science.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 calls the "double whammy", the sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't situation when being too feminine, attractive and good-looking will stigmatize women (of course not only those working in STEM fields) with the preconceived and stereotypical image of them not being serious or of them most probably being simply dumb and when being dressed in a labcoat or looking dorky enough will make women seem not worth dating. So is there a solution to these contradictions?

Pollack says she doesn't think "most of us challenge these paradigms" and that "we simply absorb them" and she is right.

I certainly think that the stereotypical images of women should be challenged but I also believe that those of men should be examined and changed as well. In some of my future posts I would like to take a look at men and fashion and how I think the "suit and tie conundrum" leaves us with men giving us the delusion that only they can always look smart. Intelligent in nerdy attire and smart, classy and sexy when all dressed up. A few questions I pose; must men look so boringly repetitive when it comes to fashion? Why does the suit and tie solve the problem for men of what to wear for dinner, meetings, job interviews, dates, etc. etc. but not for women? Should women have such an all-purpose uniform or should men be allowed to start wearing new types of attire even for formal occasions? I would opt for the latter so that the male vs. female image could be redefined and gender equality would be able to gain more ground.