Perhaps "Telecommunications bandwidth" would have made sense?

Is that what they mean or are they just finishing off a particularly troublesome round of bullshit bingo?

Cue a whole raft of companies telling the government that what they do falls neatly into one of these categories. Disaster mitigation for example: in the event of a disaster you need swift access to business service X. Therefore providers of business service X are key candidates for government cash. Or e-health; you could crowbar anything into that. And they will.

What the hell is e-health?

Health of your online persona?

The ability to do surgery remotely, using robots?

The NHS data "spine" that's about as private as your details will be on the Identity Register?

It's about making sure your pills are good quality...

Having read (well, skimmed) the publication it all seems very airy-fairy as far as setting goals for this initiative. From what I could see there was no single statement in any of the tech. descriptions to say what tangible outputs there would be.

It does look to me as if the government has some rather ill-perceived ideas of what will be important to the UK (but cyclones, earthquakes?) and has decided to throw some money in those general directions. Maybe they'll be able to say they are doing something, but from this I can't see where the payoff will come from.

Would this committee be in any way related to the one that foretold the future of air travel after the war - and lumbered us with the Brabazon and Princess Flying Boat???

--

Grumpy Old Fart

betting on FOSS for technology advance since it's a big shift in the how things are done which will produce the most benefit.

'tis with hope and absolute sincerity that I offer Broon's Loonies my list of six technologies that will provide financial and social benefits in Britain over the next five years:

Education tech: A system whereby schoolteachers can restrict themselves to actual teaching and whereby the majority of school-leavers can accurately count their own fingers and toes.

Transport tech: A system whereby a member of the public can be transported from point A to anywhere else in this piddling little island in comfort, on a predetermined schedule, in safety and for a price that does not require the services of a financial planner.

Immigration tech: A system whereby holders of non-EU passports, upon arrival at Thiefrow Airport, are asked, "Can you prove that you've got a good reason to be here and a job waiting for you? No? Then get back on the plane, mate."

Health tech: A system whereby people with healthcare needs are actually seen by actual doctors in actually hygenic surroundings and actually, occasionally cured of what ails them.

Incarceration tech: A system whereby, upon being convicted of a crime - after due process of law, including habeus corpus and effective representation - the criminal is locked up for the length of his/her sentence and, upon release (if a foreign national) is dropped off in the middle of the nearest sea.

Benefits tech: A system whereby an actual assessment is made as to whether or not a case of acute workshyness constitutes a disability and therefore an entitlement to suck off the public t!t for the rest of one's life.

Of course, the 'five years' required to implement these technologies in the UK would involve numerous trips overseas (to see how other countries already accomplish these things) which brings the added benefit that, on returning from their fact-finding missions, our various government and quango plonkers could be subjected to the newly-installed Immigration tech: (See above.)