Climate Change, Brands, Lock-In

COVID-19 unfortunately continues to attract everyone's attention, as vaccinations are progressing, but still far too slowly in Germany. At least I am very grateful since this week that my grandmother is finally second vaccinated and parents & in-laws at least first vaccinated.

What should get much more attention, however, are the increasingly visible effects of climate change, which will concern us much more massively in the coming years and decades than the Corona pandemic ever could.

Thankfully, Google Earth now helps everyone to understand the very concrete effects in impressive 3D time-lapse images from 1984 to today. Anyone who still does not want to devote the necessary attention to the topic of sustainability even after this is really beyond help.

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After all, COVID-19 has accelerated digitisation in Germany as well. Not that we have really moved ahead in an international comparison, but at least we have certainly caught up with 2-3 years in the last 12 months. But of course we have not caught up, because the other countries were by no means asleep.

In this country, too, the topic of e-commerce has grown - and big brands in particular have started to sell directly online. Ultimately nothing new, but the clear reinforcement of a trend that started many years ago and means another challenge for the retail trade.

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How misguided this ad hoc digitisation often is is shown by the worrying lock-in in hardware and software at many German schools. Instead of finally taking pupils seriously and giving them the chance to acquire digital skills not only at home but also at school, they are chained to the platforms of mostly US providers and, moreover, to pure application knowledge.

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The iCare.report is all about technology, media, politics. The weekly email report delivers the absolute essentials from the last episodes of the eicker.TV (German) livestream and is a purely private commentary by Gerrit Eicker on the most important tech news of the week.