Entrepreneurship: Innovative vs. New

After reading Winston Liang’s blog post on a recent in class presentation on Entrepreneurship and Urthecast, his post left me with some interesting points to ponder upon. First he addressed how the cameras have not even been installed, yet we were approached in class with slide upon slide of fascinating images of the images the camera would be able to capture. Secondly, Winston mentioned the same concerns that I had about the camera’s ability and what that would mean for individual privacy. If the camera has the powerful and High Definition abilities that is claims it is capable via an external blog interview conducted by IT Pro Portal and by the presentation made in class, then it does put some of our earth’s inhabitant’s safety at risk.

Currently, Google Earth is a virtual map of our globe accessible online. It us used to locate certain areas of interests and for pure entertainment of the wonders of our earth. However, it is a stagnant image and does not include the live-play back features and social media aspect that Urthecast boasts. I believe that this does raise some concerns about whether this product will create more benefits or harms to our society.

For example, privacy breeches include being able to track individuals, or follow their activities with the added social aspect. You would also be able to see if someone was breaking into, say a house. This creates a whole new platform for monitoring the world and how it behaves. Corporations would be able to track consumer behaviour and certain countries would run into issues with national security. While I agree that this new invention does transform our view of the earth, whether our society has a need for this is uncertain. When considering to build on an idea or not, I believe that it is important to consider all sides of the idea including its societal and economic implications. Wouldn’t you agree that privacy is an important issue with this new idea?