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Click the mouse and up pops the Web page. Click the mouse and off shoots that e-mail. Well, at least that’s what supposed to happen. Butnot in Asia in the week after Christmas. The December 26 earthquake in Taiwan damaged several undersea fiber-optic cables and severely disrupted Internet access throughout the region for many days after.
E-mails sent were never delivered, and websites took an interminable time toload, if they ever did at all. The result: much frustration in offices across the region,including ours here in Singapore. (The fact that two people were killed and morethan 40 injured in the quake was hardly mentioned.)
Much of the press commentary that followed focused on the fragile nature of Asia’s connectivity, depending as it does on a handful of cables buried deep beneath the ocean floor, and the need for more investment to build new capacity to match rising demand.
But another way of looking at it is as an affirmation of success. When you really notice something is missing then it must have attained some deep value. The Internet, this ordered network of computers that enables global, instantaneous communications plus access to millions of documents, is certainly in that category
That surely is the ideal for any technology – to become indispensable; to go from nice-to-have to must-have to can’t-live-without. Similarly, for today’s emerging automation trends such as highlighted in our Cover Story – real-time visibility,wireless, asset management, etc. – their proponents no doubt look forward to these soon becoming a natural and pervasive feature in manufacturing plants.
One of the roles of Control Engineering Asia is to gauge such trends and track technologies as they move through the lifecycle. And now we can do this even more, as this second year of publication sees an increase in frequency to nine issues, reflecting the magazine’s enthusiastic acceptance by readers and industry,the vibrant economy, and the sheer extent and speed of activities taking place in the world of automation.
As for me, well, looking forward to disprove F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous assertion that there are no second acts in (American) lives; to establishing CE Asia as aleading member of the global Control Engineering family; to catching the wave and accelerating through 2007 to emerge fast and strong at the finish line. Oh yes, and to no more tsunamis.
Please direct your comments to:
bob.gill@rbi-asia.com
