The Future Impact of Openness

The European Commission has released a report [.pdf] with the rather unpromising title "Trends in connectivity technologies and their socio-economic impacts". Despite this, and a rather stodgy academic style, there are a number of interesting points made.

One of the best chapters is called "Projecting the future: Scenarios for tech trend development and impact assessment", which describe three possible future worlds: Borderless, Connecting and Scattered. What's interesting is that Connecting essentially describes a world where openness of all kinds is a major feature. The implications of these kinds of worlds are then examined in detail.

I wouldn't describe it as a gripping read, but there's a huge amount of detail that may be of interest to those pondering on what may be, especially the role of openness there.