Cheaper oil is a bonanza or a disaster?

Years ago consumers including me were worried about an oil spike, but now today consumers are concerned about the the opposite: a nosedive of oil prices and possibly continued long-term glut of oil worldwide. People may wonder if the glut of crude oil might lead up to a financial crisis or another decade of a bigger economic recession on the dark side, but an accelerated exit out of the Great Recession.

The cheaper oil trend will have a greater impact than the dot.com bubble of the late 1990s, the aftermath of 9/11 tragedy, or the subprime  meltdown  and the Great Recession started in 2008?
My personal opinion is that the cheaper oil might bring a much bigger impact on the global economy than the above-mentioned disastrous events combined together.

USA Today were reporting in an article that there are four losers and four winners as a result of this glut of crude oil and continued low prices set around $56 per barrel. Only four losers and winners, respectively? Maybe or maybe more on both sides.

Iran, Russia, Nigeria and Venezuela are the four losers, according to USA Today, while Japan, USA, China and Saudi Arabia turned out to be winners.

In 1973, there was the so-called oil shock, also dubbed oil crunch, or oil crisis, which was initiated by the then OPEC countries that showed they could begin to wield oil power the world over. Now is the beginning of the demise of the OPEC?

Cheaper oil could mean a lot actually. Industrially, politically and socioeconomically.  Electric car manufacturers like Tesla Motors are the first to be hit by the cheaper oil. Oil explorers and wildcatters might be hit as well. Oil exploration equipment and facilities might face a sluggish phase of manufacturing.

Shale oil explorers in USA might experience a growing financial burden, while consumers may find more room for their daily spending, perhaps more on grocery and foods.

On the other side of the coin, environmentalists may lose momentum in their endeavors to curb global carbon footprints. It is too premature to predict anything about the cheaper oil, but one thing for sure I can predict is the global economy and technological agendas might have to face an abrupt turn from the current path.

Smart watches and wearables can be the next big thing?

Being an inventor in telematics, I wonder from time to time if what technologistas  believe could be the NEXT BIG thing comes true all the time. Maybe or maybe not.

I can say personal computing has evolved from desktop, laptop, palmtop to dashtop in terms of form factors.  Palmtop in the form of cell phones and smartphones,  and dashtop in the form of navigation, or in-vehicle infotainment equipment.

Wearables have been a buzzword in personal computing  for a couple of years. And now some people do not hesitate to say smart watches are the next big thing.

Wearable devices may be worn  in or around different parts of a human body, like ears, eyes, fingertips, wrists and so on. Not just wearable but implanted or embedded is what has been there for some time. The thing is whether  commercialization has been made enough to reach consumers in general. Have wearables  hit the critical mass already or been losing steam destined to be a thing of here today gone tomorrow?