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Wired's Wish List For 2013
jpt.d writes "Wired has a nice article on what they wish to be for 2013. It is not too far fetched either! My personal favorite is the roll up television screen made of light-emitting-polymer. How about another Apple gadget? Their first item is an iPhone bracelet, including the functionality of a 'PDA, wireless Internet, a mini iPod, and, of course, a phone.' Notice the Apple logo in the picture." I'd settle for ubiquitous unmetered wireless network access.
2013 = 3 * 11 * 61
The 'interface of something like the iPhone' exists in the wild for years and is used without any problems at all. For example, when I 'stand in the street' and want to call my wife, I can leave my tiny phone where it is and just plug a tiny headset into my ear, activate it with a press on the single button it has and say 'ring wife' very quietly. Also when speaking to my wife, I don't have to shout. I certainly don't have to hold anything to my ear and I absolutely don't look like a prat.
What the iPhone idea really is about is that you have your PDA with net access and MP3 player in the same device (so far devices like this already exist), AND have all of that in a tiny device that doesn't encumber you and even looks like a fashionable accessory. I need to put my phone and PDA into pockets and take care that they don't get lost or stolen. Having them around my wrist and thus always 'at hand' would be a great improvement.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
The Interstate Highway System, National Park System, guaranteed student loans, FDIC. There are more.
Seems to me that Wired is 13 years behind on the phone/pda/bracelet thing.
Samsung is bringing out it's mobile watch phone later this year! It has wireless bluetooth so you don't have to speak dicetly into the watch, works on the GSM network, GPRS and OLED color display!
Picture of the phone
Amen. If the guvmint had run the fiber rollout the way it regulated power (before dereg nuked us -- CA says thanks!) we'd have fiber to our homes and pay far less per month than we do now or will pay in the future.
The free market cannot, by strict profit motivation, fiber up the nation. Corporate nature will go for maximum profit for minimum rollout costs -- which is why power grids and phone companies are regulated monopolies. And those regulated businesses do just fine, and everyone gets electricity and phone servce.
And yes, high speed and nearly infinite bandwidth is a necessity. It nukes attempts to corner the entertainment industry. It provides cheap telecom. It enables nearly everything.
Bandwidth IS NOT EXPENSIVE. It has been MADE expensive. Growing profit depends on controlling supply for a demand. By artificially making bandwidth dear, we suffer as citizens while rapidly consolidating corporations make out like bandits, and plot to grab even more.
Is a corporation entitled to endlessly growing profit? Let's try: NO.
Corporations are legal fictions that were originally intended to help create a better world for us all by shielding investors from personal liability. Business and corporations exist to serve the common good. When they do not, they have violated their mandate.
I know this be heresy in this radically right wing business era, but it is true. The people, all of us, license corporations to exist for our benefit. We do not exist to serve their interests. One way is a democracy promoting business; the other, neo-feudalism.
I once did an analysis on Slashdot providing calculations on a government-rolled-out telecom network versus the current private rollout. And I found that we have spent an order of magnitude too much money for services that are shoddy and hard-to-get.
The people benefiting from the private sector rollout of "expensive bandwidth" are the rapidly monopolizing telecom companies. We, the people who they allegedy serve, are being squeezed. We are being convinced that they are doing us a favor by providing us with 100kbs pipes -- while they are milking us blind.
There are towns across the US that are rolling their own telecom. Guess what? Fat pipes, low cost, no bullshit. And with new wireless tech coming up, we won't need wires for a lot of it.