NEWS5 June 2015
UK — Telecoms giant, BT has established its 7th Network – a collaborative hub to share ideas, information and insights on the future of information and communications technology.
The company said that with the tech evolving so quickly, from smart devices to wearable tech, the 7th Network was a place to share research and debate on future developments between BT employees and external contributors.
This will complement BT’s already existing Infinity Lab programme, a competition it runs with entrepreneur community TechHub to encourage start-ups to develop new apps or services to exploit super-fast broadband.
Previous winners of that competition include Paris-based Xooloo for its app to manage children’s activities on smartphones and tablets and Utelly which brings together content on a mobile device.
To support the launch of 7th Network BT researched 1000 seven to 11-year-olds on their knowledge of tech history and expectations of technology in the future.
More than a third ( 35%) hoped computers would soon be able to clean their bedrooms, 31% thought smartphones would soon be waterproof and 18% predicted PCs would be small wearable devices implanted under the skin.
Meanwhile their historical knowledge was predictably patchy: 44% didn’t know what a telegram was and 16% thought the internet pre-dated the flushing toilet