Featured Post
Free The Hostages! Bring Them Home!
(this is a featured post and will stay at the top for the foreseeable future.. scroll down for new posts) -------------------------------...
Jul 11, 2011
Halacha Motivating Development
The free market is probably the greatest stimulus of developing technology. Someone has a great idea, and knows that if he can develop it he will make it into a success selling it because there is a market for that product or service, it pushes him to do so, to develop his idea and concept.
In Israel that is not necessarily how things work.
It was just announced in the past few days that Machon Tzomet, the inventors of many technological devices that assist people who require the technology in a way that will not violate the Shabbos such as Shabbos elevators, phones, powered vehicles (golf cart type vehicles), writing utensils, etc. has just created a new device.
The new device, a telephone that works in a way that using it will not violate the Shabbos, was just purchased by the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He actually bought 12 of these telephones - for himself and for his various religious aides and advisers.
Because they might very well need to speak on Shabbos about important situations and developments, this was created to allow them to talk under such situations, while not violating Shabbos. if it was a matter of life or death, they could use the phone without concern. However, I imagine there are many situations that might be considered urgent for a prime minister while only questionably, if at all, qualifying as a life or death situation. using this phone solves the problem the religious advisers would have had and will allow them to communicate and deal with the situation.
This is a device, an invention, that will not have much use in most of the world. The market for such a product is severely limited. In most situations, the upside limitation of having almost nowhere to sell the product would stifle the development of the technology. After all, who is going to spend so much money developing and manufacturing a product that will not sell, no matter how great of an idea it is? But in Jerusalem it is not just a matter of how big of a market does this or that product have. Solving halachic issues and concerns is enough of a motivation to encourage development!
In Israel that is not necessarily how things work.
It was just announced in the past few days that Machon Tzomet, the inventors of many technological devices that assist people who require the technology in a way that will not violate the Shabbos such as Shabbos elevators, phones, powered vehicles (golf cart type vehicles), writing utensils, etc. has just created a new device.
The new device, a telephone that works in a way that using it will not violate the Shabbos, was just purchased by the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He actually bought 12 of these telephones - for himself and for his various religious aides and advisers.
Because they might very well need to speak on Shabbos about important situations and developments, this was created to allow them to talk under such situations, while not violating Shabbos. if it was a matter of life or death, they could use the phone without concern. However, I imagine there are many situations that might be considered urgent for a prime minister while only questionably, if at all, qualifying as a life or death situation. using this phone solves the problem the religious advisers would have had and will allow them to communicate and deal with the situation.
This is a device, an invention, that will not have much use in most of the world. The market for such a product is severely limited. In most situations, the upside limitation of having almost nowhere to sell the product would stifle the development of the technology. After all, who is going to spend so much money developing and manufacturing a product that will not sell, no matter how great of an idea it is? But in Jerusalem it is not just a matter of how big of a market does this or that product have. Solving halachic issues and concerns is enough of a motivation to encourage development!
Labels:
Machon Tzomet,
Netanyahu,
tech
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Related Posts
Is this a further or different development of the grama phone? Tzomet developed and distributed a Shabbat phone already over a decade a go (want to say more like 20 years). It has been in use in a variety of emergency services. We even looked into getting one for my wife when she was still on-call for rural medical coverage. That was about 12 years ago, and the phone was in well-established use by then.
ReplyDeletemaybe the only "new" part of the story is that the prime minister bought 12 of them?
ReplyDeleteor maybe it has been changed and improved - gramma phone 2.0?