‘Hyper Services’ is the 7th issue in this P5GO sub-theme. The 4th Industrial and Social Revolutions provide new types of products and services with elevating qualities. This ‘new’ term ‘hyper-service’ is a theoretical attempt to accumulate related terms that are advancing like a syndrome. These IR4 hyper-services can enable the positive visions of a SR4 for elevated LifeQualities. Dysfunctional public sectors, however, that do not regulate the markets properly, will indirectly promote anarchism and dystopia. Therefore, after an introduction, and before some concluding remarks, the term ‘hyper services’ will be talked through, based on previous blogs about infrastructural service qualities.
First of all, the Greek word ‘hyper’ simply means ‘above’ and is synonym to the Latin ‘superior’ (i.e. ‘super’). For internet computing, ‘hypertext’ refers to ‘hyperlink’ and is well known as ‘http addresses’. Similarly, hyper-services are linked services at a higher level. They are linked via the internet, - as ‘Cloud Services’ and Apps (applications). Citizens of this century do already know such services very well and are dependent on them. Such hyper-services are used daily for searching, selecting, ordering and utilizing products and services. Some most common hyper-services are made for traveling, communicating, shopping, banking, etc. Yet, the rapid developments of new hyper-services will influence the market and their actors substantially during these IR4 and SR4.
‘XaaS’ is an abbreviation that stems from virtual computing. It means ‘(X: product) as a Service’. Cloud computing by virtualization of hardware is enabled by ‘Infrastructure as a Service’ (IaaS), ‘Platform as a Service’ (PaaS), ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS), ‘Security as a Service’ (SECaaS) and more. Adding such XaaS levels to the hardware made standardizations and re-arranging easy, - just like the internet became manageable by adding http and URL addresses to the net-cards. Now, hardware is as easy to reconfigure as software. XaaS made virtually ‘Hardware as a Software’, like virtual machines, virtual memory, virtual disks, virtual networks etc. Consequently, there is a rapid replacement of the outdated IR3 hardware with IR4 hardware, - also due to Moore’s law that says the efficiency is doubled every second year. The total reconstruction of IR4 IT is made in completely new and sustainable datacenter at remote locations, - not in overcrowded cities.
Furthermore, the term XaaS is extended in new fields like; Content as a Service (CaaS), Data as a Service (DaaS), Database as a Service (DBaaS), Desktop as a Service, Energy Storage as a Service (ESaaS), Function as a Service, Games as a Service (GaaS), IT as a Service, Logging as a Service (LaaS), Mobile backend as a Service, Monitoring as a Service, Network as a service (NaaS), Payments as a Service, Recovery as a Service, Robot as a Service, Search as a Service, Security as a Service, Storage as a Service, and more. This syndrome of making ‘Product as a Service’ seems limitless. It certainly lifts the services to another Level. Such a hyper-syndrome also applies to the production and services that indirectly utilizes the IT.
The 4th Service Industrial Revolution was introduced in the previous extra UU 2017.juni.23. “The association to this blog is the IR4 solution ‘Transportation as a Service’ (TaaS) and ‘Mobility-as-a-Service’ (MaaS). The concept makes a shift from personally owned transportation to mobility solutions as a service. It combines transportation services of public and private providers based on the travel needs. Users can pay per trip or a monthly fee for persons or goods. There are numerous innovative new mobility service providers involving ride-sharing, e-hailing, bike-sharing, car-sharing and ‘pop-up’ buses. MaaS will escalate since self-driving cars are expected to become cheaper. There are multiple modes of transport for seamless trip chains, with bookings and payments managed collectively for all parts of the transport. Travel-planning typically show several transport combinations so the user can choose based on cost, time, and convenience. It is expected that apps will work user friendly in most cities and nations.” A well-known TaaS is the service provider Über that competes with traditional Taxi service providers. However, true TaaS and MaaS have no limits in vessels or locations. True TaaS and MaaS provides all options and variations for traveling from A to B.
Furthermore, the fundaments of the IR4 was described in UU 2017.mai.19: “The Fourth Industrial Revolution builds on the Digital Revolution, representing new ways in which technology becomes embedded within societies and even the human body. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology, The Internet of Things, 3D printing and autonomous vehicles. The technologies have great potential to continue to connect billions more people to the web, drastically improve the efficiency of business and organizations and help regenerate the natural environment through better asset management.” All the new IR4 Hyper-Services will most certainly concern much more than innovative ways of transport, communication and production.
Still, some fundamental understanding of the ‘quality of products and services’, is necessary in order to understand the next levels of IR4 Hyper-Services. This was in-depth focused in several earlier blogs. Here are some bullet points taken from UU 2016.aug.26 to support that theoretical fundament:
- “The terms ‘products’ and ‘services’ are fundamental for understanding of the concept of quality. Descriptions of products and services are abstract and meaningless without any qualitative characteristics. Therefore, it is vital to use the globally recognized definition of quality (ISO 8402-1986). It says: “Quality (is) the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs”. This is simply common sense put in system. Anyone can understand that. However, defining ‘stated needs’ and ‘implied needs’, and properties on products and services can be comprehensive and challenging, but quite manageable with some experience.”
- “Any civilized society is dependent on qualitative products and services. The terms of quality are often misused though, like a use of the term ‘service’ implies some kind of positive quality.” Furthermore, “Immaterial and material products have very different qualitative properties. Services can be provided by others or simply as a self-service, which has very different legal perspectives.” Software, music, literature, movies etc. are immaterial products, and not services.
- “The main task of the public sector is to provides services to the citizens and the society. Therefore, wrong perception of service-qualities in the Executive Powers are fatal. Public servants and politicians need to understand what quality on services for health, transport, education really is.”
- “Self-services is a democratic solution in the sense that the citizens are provided the means necessary to service their needs themselves. The public Executive powers are obliged by law to provide sufficient infrastructure, information, resources etc. The faith that the citizens can and will service themselves, is now evident by looking at services concerning banking, internet-trade, transport, self-studies, social networks etc. The potentials for public self-services seems unlimited, - if the resources are made available.”
- “Products and services can be categorized in order to figure out what politics are constructive. Such a topology can differ between ‘necessary’ and ‘tradeable’ – or not. Then, it is easy to determine whether it should to be public or not public. For example, there should not be private monopoly on water and there should not be permanent collective homes in a democracy. Some products and services require markets for exchange, while some ‘market failures’ are because they cannot be priced and traded. On the other hand, there are ‘public failures’; like that financing by ‘forced collection’ makes discontent and resistance in the population. Furthermore, public spending is less efficient since human nature tends to feel less responsible for others’ resources than their own.”
- “Products and Services should therefore be divided into the four categories; 1. Collective/necessary is a Public responsibility, 2. Collective/unnecessary – are Public regulated and partial responsible, 3) Trade/necessary – is Public Controlled Market, 4) Trade/unnecessary – Commercial market for anyone. For example, categories can be; air/water=1, police=1, food=4, home=4, sports-arena=3, subway=3, bridges=1,2,3, roads=1,2,3,4. Some public products and services should get a ‘flying start’ by public subsidies and protected dominance in the market. When the infrastructure is constructed and market mature, the products can be moved from category 1) ‘public responsibility’ to categories like 2), 3), and 4), - as for telecom, mass media, education and railroads.
- However, such categorizations are simplified, because the differences of the phases of building, operations and maintenance for public infrastructure. Infrastructures are collective and by properties and the tasks has to be the public sectors responsibilities. On the other side, it can be rational to engage commercial enterprises in competition for construction, operations and maintenance.”
- “There are many kinds of infrastructures (IS) in any society. For example, there are IS for planes, bridges, broadband, canals, pools, electricity, oil, energy, waste, hospitals, lighthouses, dams, parks, ports, mass transport, public sector and public spaces.”
Public hyper-services are also based on qualities of products and services according to the ISO definition and the regulations of the EU Internal Market. (See 2017.juni.09.) Therefore, a main challenge for the public sectors is to innovate the infrastructure services according to the concepts of IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, SECaaS, as well as the other XaaS. Public services that could and should innovate as IR4 hyper-services involves infrastructures for; Energy aaS, Transport aaS, Emergency aaS, Security aaS, Police aaS, Defense aaS, Finance aaS, Communication aaS, Education aaS, Healthcare aaS, Welfare aaS, Subsidies aaS, Jurisdiction aaS, Governance aaS, Citizenship aaS, Broadcast aaS, Information aaS, Housing aaS, Food aaS, Waste management aaS, Water supply aaS etc.
How-to have public servants implement high-qualitative public hyper-services? Now, that is a major struggle that is already started and will go on for the next decades. Yet, the greatest cold-war casualties, the public sector, is made dysfunctional unable to heal itself (UU 2017.juni.16). ‘The Frexit contra-revolution’ was talked through in the previous UU 2017.juni.23, where the new regime certainly takes the challenges. However, so-called investment scandals for innovations in the public sector are due to public servants’ mismanagements, and even organized crimes. Some are made bound to outdated hardware junkyards, believing they cannot be free of the extreme cost-inefficiency. Consequently, the money for innovative re-investments are wasted. Methods for healing the dysfunctionalized public sectors were talked through in UU 2017.juni.16.
The cold-war cultures of IR3 made public services oligarchic and highly corrupted. Therefore, the ‘western’ LEJD powers (Legal, Executive, Juridical & Democratic) need to systematically and determined enter to win the rivalries, in order to regain control of their market of public services. The public sectors should embrace, utilize and develop hyper-services by IR4 means. Therefore, necessary innovations of public services must go through processes similar to IT in this century, independent of those political warzones. The cold-war must end in the public sectors too. The IR4 provides the means and can be done with technocratic ‘rule by law’ and realization of the P5GO (the 5th Pyramid Game Over).
Links:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/superior
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing#Service_models
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_a_service
Music:
The synth pop group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark formed in the late '70s by Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey. They were inspired by Brian Eno and Kraftwerk. A vocal on bass and one on synth was an unusual concept for a band. They released its first single ‘Electricity’ and were able to built a studio, which allowed them to record on four-track with four musicians. The Top Ten single ‘Enola Gay’ made a breakthrough. The band's albums ‘Architecture & Morality’, ‘Dazzle Ships’ and ‘Junk Culture’ found the band experimenting with its sound, resulting in several U.K. hit singles. Though, ‘The Pacific Age’ was popular only in America. Shortly after its release, only McCluskey continued with the band. OMD released ‘Liberator’ in 1993, and had a full-blown reunion and touring with a full-album performance of ‘Architecture & Morality’, followed up with the album ‘History of Modern’.
The association to this blog is the perceptions and reactions to the IR1 technology ‘Telegraph’, as it was for the IR2 Telephone and IR3 Computer. Now such instinctive barriers are for the 3D VR too.
OMD - Telegraph (Extended Vinyl-Copy) + Lyrics
https://youtu.be/cLhI4JLFzR0
http://www.metrolyrics.com/telegraph-lyrics-omd.html
The Best of OMD – full album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tHwTTxGk0A
Public hyper-services are based on qualities of other products and services. A main challenge for the public sectors is to innovate all infrastructure services according to the concepts of IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, SECaaS, as well as the other XaaS. Public services that could and should innovate as IR4 hyper-services involves infrastructures for; Energy aaS, Transport aaS, Emergency aaS, Security aaS, Police aaS, Defense aaS, Finance aaS, Communication aaS, Education aaS, Healthcare aaS, Welfare aaS, Subsidies aaS, Jurisdiction aaS, Governance aaS, Citizenship aaS, Broadcast aaS, Information aaS, Housing aaS, Food aaS, Waste management aaS, Water supply aaS etc.
Here are some related videos.
Animation: Could mobility be viewed as a service?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQieTU7_5xo
Transportation as a Service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_as_a_Service
Insights: Disruptive innovation in the public sector: What? Why? How? Now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXTk_oEQtTc
The Rise of the Machines – Why Automation is Different this Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSKi8HfcxEk&feature=youtu.be
ICT-enabled public sector innovation in H2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XScyBiyo6XE