Google guru on standards, mobility and our digital future

The finance industry must embrace broad standards for electronic commerce and avoid past mistakes, said Vinton G. Cerf, at a breakfast briefing at HSBC’s London headquarters this week.
The ‘father of the internet’ and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google said that standardisation is fundamental to innovation and the development of new business models.
Vinton said that a big driver of new internet services is the growth of mobile web access. Over one billion new phones are expected to ship this year.
As we store more and more of our information online, Vinton noted, we must be careful to preserve older applications and operating systems or we run the risk of ‘bit rot’ rendering our valuable records and files useless. Envisaging a future where humans might one day download their entire personalities onto a computer, bit rot would become a very scary prospect.
The security and privacy of customer data is also a big responsibility for banks and other businesses. Technology, regulation and ethics must all play a role in guaranteeing confidence and trust online.