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We Have No Internet— Now What?

Society is dependent on technology—no argument there. Today’s youth does not know a world without mobile electronic devices that keep us connected 24/7, and a senior in high school does not know a world without Google. What happens if an asteroid storm takes out all the satellites orbiting the earth? Well, I experienced two technology crises in the last two weeks that was not as draconian as our satellites collapsing, but it did give me a moment to pause and think about our dependence on technology.

My neighbor was watching TV last month when the picture froze without warning and was unresponsive to any button pushing on the remote. No power outage, no sparks flying out of the TV, no humming, buzzing or cracking—just a frozen picture. He picked up his cellphone to speak with customer service at Comcast, but the cell phone had no service. So, he decided to try Googling the problem—oops….no Internet! The problem is with Comcast.

So the next thing you do in a situation like this is ask a neighbor if they are experiencing the same problem (eliminating a problem with your internal network). Phone, Internet and cable was up and running at my home, but I use Verizon for these services. I opened Internet Explorer and Googled “Comcast outage problems.” Within seconds we had our answer; Comcast had widespread outages from coast-to-coast, especially in the Seattle, San Francisco, Colorado, Illinois, Florida and New England markets.

My neighbor had no phone, Internet or TV for two full days. What was really alarming is the lack of communication from Comcast. No updates or apologies ever went out to their customer base. More than ten million families in the U.S. have packaged services from either Verizon or Comcast. This dependency on one service provider is a huge problem when a widespread outage occurs because there is no backup!

A second, more serious event happened in Japan last week. This is an example of people trusting technological advances when dealing with Mother Nature.

A mid-sized typhoon crossed the main island of Japan bringing soaking rain to the Eastern part in a very short period of time. The amount of rainfall doubled the total amount for the entire month of September, and broke rainfall records for many towns and provinces. Several towns had over 500 millimeters of rain in 48 hours, and river banks were tested. Many residents did not think to evacuate because they were protected with the latest flood control technologies implemented over the last thirty years.

The Kinu River on the north side of Tokyo tore into the banks with a hundred meter opening within two hours. This flooded the flat lands and farms adjacent to the river, and many people had no time to evacuate. Fortunately, all family members who were floating on man made rafts or stranded on the roofs of houses were rescued by helicopters. In one case, the family’s house was washed away fifteen minutes after they were plucked from the roof! More than one hundred homes were washed away, and several thousands were damaged. The entire rescue and flood was caught on cameras and played out before our very eyes.

What did I learn from this? I love technology and I am tethered to the TV, cellphone and PC like the rest of us. When my neighbor lost these luxuries (or necessities) it threw him for a loop. I guess the best thing to do is have a backup plan in case of outages. The flood taught me not to mess with Mother Nature. There is no perfect technology or secure system that can keep up with our raging planet. It is the reason why I always confirm two emergency exits and the place of the life jacket in the airplane before takeoff.

Dominique K. Numakura, dnumakura@dknresearch.com

DKN Research, www.dknresearchllc.com

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Headlines of the week

(Please contact haverhill@dknreseach.com for further information of the news.)

1. LINTEC (Specialty film supplier in Japan) 8/25
Has agreed with ITRI in Taiwan to work together for the R&D project of organic flexible EL display providing high barrier film technologies.
 
2. Canon (Major electronics company in Japan) 8/27
Has developed a new Blue Spectrum Refractive Optical Device for color correction of BR lenses.
 
3. Hitachi Chemical (Major electronic material supplier in Japan) 8/31
Has received an order of hybrid energy storage system as the environmental protection activity in Galapagos Islands.
 
4. Iwasaki Electric (Major electric device supplier in Japan) 9/1
Will build a new technical center in Saitama Prefecture for R&D services of the lighting devices. The center will have 600 employees.
 
5. Kyoto University (Japan) 9/2
Has succeeded to improve the conversion rate of polymer base photovoltaic cell more than 30% by introducing new infrared light absorber.
 
6. Murata (Major device supplier in Japan) 9/3
Has commercialized a new high frequency matching device for IoT equipment with sub 1GHz and 2.4GHz bands.
 
7. Tohoku University (Japan) 9/4
Has developed a new lithium ion air battery for EV. One charge is enough for 500 km drive.
 
8. Fujitsu  (Major electronics company in Japan) 9/8
Has developed the world smallest microwave receiver based on low loss polyimide substrate for 300GHz band. It is capable to receive several ten G bits per second.
 
9. Canon (Major electronics company in Japan) 9/8
Has developed a new photo processing soft wear that makes 3D image prints realistic.

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To reach Dominique K. Numakura, visit www.dknresearchllc.com or email dnumakura@dknresearch.com.