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Phone As Your Next Computer?
Octagon Most writes "Newsweek magazine ponders if a mobile phone will be 'Your Next Computer' and enlists Frog Design to mock-up an 'Integrated Fusion Device'. With mobile phones selling at a rate of 650 million per year and climbing, there are already three times as many phones in use as personal computers. PalmOne's Jeff Hawkins predicts that devices like the Treo will become the new centers of our digital lives as millions of people own phones but not computers."
Someone at Palm predicting their device will become the center of our lives.
Imagine the /. effect from that many devices
Evolution or ID?
"One hundred nineteen hours, 41 minutes and 16 seconds. That's the amount of time Adam Rappoport, a high-school senior in Philadelphia, has spent talking into his silver Verizon LG phone since he got it as a gift last Chanukah. That's not even the full extent of his habit. He also spends countless additional hours using his phone's Internet connection to check sports scores, download new ringtones (at a buck apiece) and send short messages to his friends' phones, even in the middle of class. "I know the touch-tone pad on the phone better than I know a keyboard," he says. "I'm a phone guy."
So this kid spends an average of 1025 minutes a MONTH on his cell phone? That rivals most business people.. And I would hate to be the parent who pays that bill including the ungodly amount of ringtones that he probably also already has.
Hmmm.
Seriously. Screen size? Input? Output? Assorted other sundry capabilities?
Phones will not replace computers as they currently stand unless our technology begins to approach near Star Trekian levels (which I'm not entirely ruling out, but won't be for a little while at least). Sure, *some* people might use phones instead of computers, but that's because if they used computers they wouldn't be using computers to their full capacity. They just need an addressbook and a few stupid games anyway, so let them have their PDA-phone. Me, I'll keep my computer.
What about the Hiptop (aka T-mobile Sidekick in the US)?
More links here, here (they sometimes go for as low as $29.95), and here.
I know several people that use this as their only method of connecting to the Internet. I guess it's not the best as a word processor but the developer OS allows for Java applications to be written and uploaded to the device.
With VoIP services making inroads, and broadband becoming much more popular, perhaps he should have been asking whether your computer will be your next phone.
For all practical purposes, mobiles have already become many people's secondary computer at least. For me at least, the mobile has become my defacto "little black book," primary timepiece, alarm clock, egg timer, to-do list, stock ticker, IM device, etc.
Voice mail on the mobile is actully higher-priority than my e-mail (and spam free for the moment). I think people's overall relationship with their mobiles may even be deeper than with their computers--especially in the world out there beyond slashdot.
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
I have three "computers". One is a 1ghz laptop, the second is a desktop 486 (which works just fine for email, IRC etc) I also have a Nokia 6600, which is a series 60 (symbian) phone. It has a 100mhz arm processor powering it, and takes MMC cards for extra storage. It too can do email (IMAP or POP), irc, ssh, and also browse the web (using Opera). Since you can program for it with C++ or Java, there's not a lot you can't then get it to do For a lot of people, it almost does everything they want of a computer (writing documents on it is a bit icky, even with a bluetooth keyboard. Won't be long until someone's done a good word processor for it. It already supports printing via BlueTooth). So, I'd say it's pretty likely that many people (non tech types) will quickly get smart phones like (or just beyond) mine, and just use those
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
My cellphone offers the absolute slowest access to e-mail imagineable. I've never tried to pull up a website on it, it can only hold a few lines of text. I have seen some Clie` models that could possibly replace a person's need for a laptop but a PC in the home, I think not.
I boycott signatures
Artist Howard Hallis came up with The Mini as a concept for such a device.
Oddly, he created this work of "art" in the medium of "lenticular," those tilt-the-page things to see a different image.
Still, I wouldn't mind such a device.
You mean... there's actually a world outside of this fascinating website? Continue... please.
With the small size and weight of phones these days, I can't see holding this anchor up-side my head.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
If I ever meet you, I'm going to kiss your ass.
That's great! Since, I cancelled my cell phones services (because I got sick of people getting a hold of me when I was trying to be OUT) I've been using it only as a address and phone book keeper. I'm excited about other useful features for my out of service cell phone.
Thank you!
I already think we've exhausted this industry. I hardly see the point in having a picture-phone, but thats just me. I can understand how some people would WANT a picture phone, but not a PC phone. I can already see the army of keyboards that would come with it, smaller than a credit card. This idea hopefully won'y fly, as its also bad enough that I see people on the road with phones, and computers while driving. Imagine combining the two, I'm staying off the road if this ever gets out.
"One hundred nineteen hours, 41 minutes and 16 seconds. That's the amount of time Adam Rappoport, a high-school senior in Philadelphia, has spent talking into his silver Verizon LG phone since he got it as a gift last Chanukah. That's not even the full extent of his habit. He also spends countless additional hours using his phone's Internet connection to check sports scores, download new ringtones (at a buck apiece) and send short messages to his friends' phones, even in the middle of class. "I know the touch-tone pad on the phone better than I know a keyboard," he says. "I'm a phone guy." Just guessing here, but...Mr. Rappoports GPA is probably about 0.6 and he'll be text-messaging his friends during his shift at MacDonald's this time next year...
My father has owned a Kyocera Smartphone for some time now. It is basically a phone with a Palm V built into it. If you ask me he uses that thing as much, if not more than, his computer. Both computers and telephones are basically tools for communication when you get down to it.
Steal This Sig
Glad to know we can look forward to clunky, unintuitive, shit-ergonomic devices in the future.
Thanks, Frog Design!
that I have been interested in for some time. I have done a lot of reading on wearable interfaces etc, but the mobile phone seems to be a prime unintrusive platform for 24/7 computing. Some phones are coming along with cameras and the like, but it still seems a long way off. I still use text messaging to communicate via AIM on my phone. I think this has the potential to be come a reality with the miniaturization of hardware. Sony Ericsson seems to be leading the industry in putting more computing power into cell phones with Bluetooth, cameras and the like.
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
In any case, until hands shrink or eyes focus more tightly or web sites start publishing for 100x100 displays, there are going to be big monitors and keyboards that will likely be connected to big boxes of some kind for the forseeable future.
This is basically already true outside of the US where home broadband and home PCs are much less widespread than in North America. This is due to many reasons IMHO, from a different work ethic --where you don't bring work home with you, and thus you have less reason for a home PC-- to cost to lifestyle differences to infrastructure (simply put, GSM phones are much more reliable and sometimes cheaper than regular PSTN lines).
:-)
This extends to other products as well: PDAs and portable game consoles are also much less common than cell phones and phones are taking over those niches too. Nokia is a much bigger threat to Windows than Linux internationally
So, the article is not really news, it's just US being behind the curve on this one.
Integrated Fusion Device? Well, I guess they'll need it to power all that crap.
Portable devices can't replace the fully fledged functionality of a PC. Not unless they invent some sort of tansformer bananaphone which transforms into a desktop PC cause thats what your gonna need to play the latest games, burn cds and word process documents.
My finances are already basically all tied up in my PDA; just about any personal application development or service rollout I consider has to take into account access from a PDA, too. It's not as powerful nor can it handle complex tasks as well as my computer, but it's an extremely valuable data entry device and it can handle basic computing tasks quite handily. In the past, people ran an entire small business on a computer with less power.
--Matthew
I think that mobile phones could well become the "killer app" for Grid technology. By "outsourcing" processor intensive tasks to a powerful server owned by the phone company and then seamlessly integrating results returned by that server, each mobile phone could effectively be made just as powerful as a desktop machine (well, in a few years time, anyway).
Of course, you have obvious constraints like screen size, but if you coupled voice technology with the phone (audio being sent to server and processed there, over 3G or 4G link) then you could end up with something not too unlike a Star Trek computer!
USER: Hello Mr. Phone! Can you tell me what the weather is like in Las Vegas, please?
MR. PHONE: Yes! It will be 87 degrees and a little windy! By the way, you're running low on credit - want to top up?
No Child Left Behind Act: Keep Them On The Phone So They Can't Learn Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and VOTING
I hope this clarifies his phone obsession.
Thank you and have a George_W_Bush_spam_free day!
Regards,
Kilgore
A phone that works and it confortable to use, A computer that works and is comfortable to use. They do not/need not be the same device. A cell phone is too damn small to be very useful as a computer. Hell I think they're too damn small to be useful phones anymore. They get you by until you get somewhere with proper facilities.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
Well, at least he could get free ring tunes
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
If you had a phone/PDA combo that could plug into commonly-available docks, like a laptop dock, you might be on to something. Add in wired networking (which will always be faster than wireless, by the nature of signals) and extra, long-term storage, some good speakers for gravy.
For now, I have a PDA (Handera 330, sweet little machine), and I love and use it... but I'm typing this in on a desktop, 'cause I code for a living, and coding on a PDA, while possible, is painful, even with a plug-in keyboard.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
The chairman of IBM, in 1949, predicted that the "world could use maybe five computers".
I have five cell phones.
Every time I hear "fusion", I can't help but think of the restaurant which used to be near where I worked in Westchester county(NY). Not exactly your typical definition of "Fusion".
The name: McWang's.
Yup. Half Irish pub, half chinese restaurant.
Please help metamoderate.
So this kid spends an average of 1025 minutes a MONTH on his cell phone?
Why is that so weird? Think about it. You're being overwhelmed by a large number. First, divide 1025 by 60 to see that its 19 hours. There. Already that doesn't sound so bad. 19 hours a month. Divide by four. Round up. That's five hours a week.
NEWSFLASH! High school student talks on phone for five hours a week! Parents and community amazed! Film at 11!
C'mon. Most, if not all, of those minutes were probably used in the evenings, or on weekends, when they're unmetered anyway. Since when was this excessive phone usage for an eighteen year old? Just because its a celphone, not a regular cordless phone?
I mean, really.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
it has a >=17" monitor, a 5.1 surround system with subwoofer, a standard 104 key keyboard and a standard mouse. Until then nobody is going to pry my desktop computer from my cold dead hands - that's the reason I don't use a laptop either - can't stand those damn tiny keys and track point/ball/pad.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
My cell phone can barely be called a phone based upon it's service track and they want to make it my next PC?
While I sincerely doubt that phones will be the next PC, I do think that you'll see some merging between the various carry on devices. Imagine for a moment, something about the size of a standard Palm Pilot or PocketPC device. It's fully connected to the Internet via wireless, has a built in harddrive, and a pencil thin pull out "handset" that talks to the main unit via Bluetooth.
This device would let you check your email, store extra files (which can be synced via bluetooth), keeps track of your calendar and alerts, and would allow an exchange of business cards via wireless connections (IR or Bluetooth). When a phone call comes in, it will buzz until you remove the handset (fitted similar to a the stylus of a typical Palm) and press the accept button. Notes can be entered via handwriting recognition, or a virtual keyboard projected onto a surface.
Now you may not find this device tremendously useful. But it would be a God-send for people who carry a Cell Phone, PDA, BlackBerry, and Laptop.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Pardon me, as I'm sure I'll get modded as -1 Neo-Luddite, but I hate cellphones more than anything in the world. Although it is a bit of a contradiction that I carry one, it's only because I have to. I'm just sick of people spending more time choosing a different ringtone for every person they know than they do talking to those people.
I just think that that there's better things to do than think over new ways to be rude in public...like surfing the web on a 1x1 screen, taking lo-res pictures, or just trying to get attention
I just want my phone to be a phone and a good one that is easy to use. I don't want to have to pull out a manual bigger than the phone so I can figure out a whole bunch of menus that are not the same from one phone to the next model.
If I want a good knife, I don't want a Swiss Army one that's so big I can't wrap my fingers around it, I want a Knife that's a knife and just a knife... Same thing with my phone. Yeah, how old fashioned is that?
All this wrapping everything into one miniature package means too many compromises, IMHO. It may do a lot of things, but all of them are done inconveniently.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I did buy one of those spiffy Zaurus SL-5500 (back when /. had the article on getting one for $175 from HSN, last fall) and it's ok for some things, but navigation and entry are much more time consuming than on a regular PC. (for that matter I have found laptops to be slower to work with, too, and currently have a Keytronic LT keyboard plugged into it so I can type faster with fewer mistakes.) A cell phones are a unique beast, it can serve or combine PDA functionality, but it's to cumbersome for its size to maximize input and output capabilities. Don't even get me started on my dyslexia (which seems among people to be on the rise or simply more reported.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It may be more powerful, but it doesn't come anywhere NEAR the ease-of-use. That's the problem with using phones as computers - their small size translates into frustration when trying to do anything serious due to the lack of space for a nicely-sized keyboard, display, etc.
Which would you rather browse the web on, a full-sized desktop or a T-Mobile Sidekick?
As Sun says, the network is the computer. We're not going to have phones as computers until the phones are on the Net, and I don't mean 2400 baud GPRS.
Give me, in a Treo package (i.e. with thumbboard), a 320x480 screen (like a Tungsten, not a 160x160 like the Treo 600), high-speed Internet, and a video recorder with sound (because the failure of the mainstream media demands that the citizenry does its own reporting). Give me that now. Don't wait for the translation. Don't wait for 1X EV-DV.
So while they may not REPLACE the desktop, I can certainly see them as becoming just as essential as one if they aren't already.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
you have your 12 buttons and your 1.5-inch screen. consider writing war and peace.. or even a screenplay for the next episode of some twaddle half-hour sitcom... on that freakin' tiny thing.
ain't gonna happen, total worldwide sales = 0, including gadget geeks.
the next iteration will have 101 keys and a 1.5-inch color XGA screen in the same palmprint. removeable flash cards. built-in strip printer. snap-on color faceplates. and the buttons will be the size of cockroach droppings with mushy feel.
total worldwide sales = 150, all gadget geeks, who subsequently renounce worldly goods and wiles, and live as zen hermits on mountaintops until struck by lightning.
nothing good can come of this.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Everyone will have two devices, their "box" and their "portable." The "boxes" will probably be something like a laptop. It's small, but usually stationary. A home will have several of these, maybe one for every person, and they all will be wirelessly connected. They will easily share data and the network will be controlled by a wireless hub that the internet provider, cable or phone company, will set up. Then their portable will be like a phone. It may include a camera and audio player. It will sync effortlessly with their box.
Some of this is already here with bluetooth and wifi, but it's still not integrated as best as it should. I wouldn't be surprised if microsoft has similar predictions and they're trying to incorporate this into to future windows versions. This could be a technology that could promote linux if big companies like SuSE or mandrake pour some money into it. However, seemless integration and linux haven't always gone together.
This is just my prediction, take it or leave it.
Well, I have 50 minutes a day of (offpeak) free calls, and I spend the week away from my partner, so I probably use most of them. that's, say, 250 minutes a week (4x50 + maybe 30-50 minutes peak-time calls), or 1000 minutes in 4 weeks.
So why is 1025 minutes such a lot?
come on! that's a frickin ridiculous assumption to be making. your average joe uses their PC for basic functionalities such as email, ebay, surfing the web, porn and music. what about word processing, programming and your text based applications? where do we keep the keyboard, in our asses? i'll take a Grid Compass anyday thank you.
now stand up and smell your chair...
Yeah just what I want a subscription based pc ... M$ anyone?
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
If it was going to happen, it would have. Maybe once wifi becomes prevalent enough to compete with the absolutly ridiculous data rate most telcoms charge things will change.
Until then, its a good idea surrounded by too much greed.
I've been using the Treo 600 for a few months now (I used the 180 before that). It *has* replaced a number of the functions that were previously provided by my desktop. I use it for email and a lot of web browsing (mostly news sites). I've started reading "e-books" on it (never did that on the desktop, actually), and it provides about 100% of my contact tracking and calendar functionality.
:)), but that's about the only thing I *have* to go back ot the pc for.
Just having a simple text editor with me at all times is huge. I've also got an ssh client running, so there's basically nothing I can't do in the area of remote admin.
It runs moria!
I've found that I'm in front of the computer significantly less now. I still use it for development (eclipse won't run on the treo
who's moderating the meta-moderators?
I dont give a damn what fruit that they put in it, as long as they dont forget that at the end of the day, the phone still needs to be a good phone!
But if somebody comes up with a half-baked phone with a half-baked pda, a half baked computer and a half-baked game system built in, no thanks!
Integrating pagers into phones made lots of sense. But that doesn't mean that integrating everything else does.
Seriously. Screen size? Input? Output? Assorted other sundry capabilities?
After a short stint with holograms, voice recognition and features like that... these would become networked mind controlled implants. No IO required outside your brain.
Evolution or ID?
I have this hellishly long commute that I have to make productive. So I acumulate gadgets like a folding bike, and a powerful cell phone/PDA.
I have a T-Mobile PocketPC and I bought the add-on thumb keyboard. On my way to work, I check and answer my e-mail, write documents (like homeworks and tests -- I'm a professor) and even keep my grade rosters on the spreadsheet. A 1GB SD card fits enough songs to keep me happy. I IM my friends when I'm bored.
Some things I can't do: Coding needs a lot of visual space -- I have trouble even on my 15" laptop -- as does drawing graphics. Many web pages work badly on small screens (esp. the ones you need most on the go like citysearch and yahoo maps/yellow pages) but I suspect more sites will detect handhelds and display an appropriate screen (osnews is a site that does this well).
Anyway I suspect these devices will become especially important in developing countries, where temperature/humidity resistance, a lack of constant electricity, and price are all important. But I still haven't thrown away my laptop and I don't expect to anytime soon even if I use it less.
P.S. This is not an ad for my device; T-Mobile has lousy reception in my area though their internet plan is cheap. I wish I could run linux on the device (It would probably run but I don't think the phone would work anymore) but PocketPC has most of the applications I need.
In all honesty, I think his habits have probably grown from a situation where he doesn't have to foot the bill. It reminds me of CEOs who have ridiculously expensive laptops - if they had to actually plonk down the cash out of their own wallets instead of just having their company buy it for them, they'd stop being so silly.
Or at least, you'd HOPE they would.
... but if it's the "center of my digital life", it has to be able to play games at least as well as the next gen GBA, fit a gig or two of MP3's and play them back (while I play my GBA type games), have a nice web browser (guess I'll need an external monitor jack) read email (could do that even on a small LCD screen), send email (voice recognition or external keyboard that stays home with the monitor), and be able to do all the PDA tasks. Make it the size of my LG-10 flip phone. Battery life of 6 hours of constant use and 96 hours of stand by.
Do that and I'll take it at any price under $400 US. Otherwise, don't bother me.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
In my opinion, Microsoft needs to learn that not everything is a webpage, and everyone needs to learn that smaller is not necessarilly better. One time in high school I heard two popular, trendy girls having a heated argument about who had the smaller cell phone.
Hi im Troy McClure, you may remember me from such promos as "My NGage is my GameBoy", and "My NGage is my Phone".
Coming this summer...
DOOM3 to be new phone KILLER APP
Utilising the 16 pipelined hyperpixelshaderrazzmattaz(tm) found in all current mobile phones. It will now be possible to have a 10 million person deathmatch over the dedicated ultra low latency high bandwidth WAP services offered by our cutting edge ISPs. Remember to upgrade your large 120x100x48bpp screen to the new and improver super duper sized 240x200x48bpp screen, YES a times 4 improvement. DOOM3 is hotly tipped to be this years number two must have game, after HalfLife 2!
So buy, buy, buy, remember... "with this phone you dont need a PC"(tm)
Esentially they want to make your phone into the modern day digital swiss army knife.
Hmmm.
I just want to add a piece of anecdotal evidence to argue *against* convergence of phone/pda technology. My wife had a Treo 600 for about 4 months while going through 3 defective units... The final kicker was basically that while we are generally willing to tolerate a not-so-reliable computing resource (reboots, fails, etc.) we NEED to stay connected (particularly for job related communications) and won't tolerate downtime for a phone...
"I think people's overall relationship with their mobiles may even be deeper than with their computers"
Especially among the female population.
---
"Sorry, but according to [the] tests [we turn off, and on], you are trying to post from an open HTTP proxy. "
in Japan. A lot of people there only have email/data access through their cell phones(the un-geek way to go I'm sure) Most of them have no money/desire to get a personal computer/internet connection, and if they need to go on the web they do it through internet cafes.
Interesting really. But then again, the cellphone technology in Japan is much more advanced(in general) than that in the US.
I'm having a hard enough time just finding a simple cell phone that doesn't have neon lights, cameras, built-in video games or vaccum cleaner attachments.
Just a damn phone, that's all i want.
do() || do_not();
Disclosure: I don't have a PDA, and I don't want one, because I wouldn't use it, so I can't rant about that yet.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Lets not kid ourselves here ... the "convenience-factor" is the issue that will tip the scales. The buying public really only cares if its going to make their lives easier.
My last job was managing a wireless retail store - and although I happen to drool over specs, most people think benefits, not features.
I think FrogDesign's servers just croaked!
Yeah, and I dont carry or use a swiss army knife either. :)
Personally, I want a phone with better voice recognition (at least as good as Wildfire or TellMe), no screen, and good integration with Directory Assistance.
SCENERAO:
Device A uses X amount of electricity to perform a task
Device B uses 100X of electricity to perform the same task
I get that device B uses 100 times the electricity of device A.
Device A uses 1% of the electricity that device B uses.
Since when did "100 times less" == 1%?
I and many others during the .com high predicted this was comming.
Why is IT viewed as a commidty? Where is the innovation and importance? Innovation in IT is alive and kicking, just on a smaller scale.
Mainframe lovers trashed the microcomputer or PC and even RMS viewed them as toys and focused gnu on "real"systems.
Funny how people still do this today with computers. I mean pc computers obviously.
The microprocessor gave rise to micro's and the internet/networking gave rise to cells.
But like high end servers and mainframes are still around the same is true with desktops. They are not going away. Rather the market will shift to them and keep them around for background stuff. On your desk you will probably have them for years and use your cell however for IM and some email.
I think their may be some hope for sun after all and problems for Microsoft. Java is going to be HOTT real soon. All the software companies will target phones and use the micro-edition of java or perl embedded.
Perhaps MS may be the next IBM, The former monopolist giant.
http://saveie6.com/
the next computer? not likely, but the next best thing to a computer when yer not at yours.
ive been using the hitachi g1000 for the last few weeks, and have found it absoultely wonderful.
for me, phone is not the primary method of communication anymore and when im away from a computer id like to stay in touch.
being able to check email, recieve instant messages and connect to an ip network, i believe will be an essential function of cellular phones in the very new future. oh and retaining the ability to place and recieve calls would be nice too. though that still needs much work.
You can easily get a 1000 minute per month phone plan on any carrier for less than $100/month. Also, he's a Jew so his family is probably loaded so $100 isn't going to kill him.
Is there a real reason for these types of devices? Why do I need a cell phone that mangages email addresses, takes pictures, surfs the web on a postage-stamp size screen, etc.etc.? How about making it so that my phone can work nearly everywhere first? It doesn't work at my house, I can't go *inside* any buildings like walmart and still recv a call. Maybe if it did its original function well, we wouldn't need 5000 other features.
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
Since when was this excessive phone usage for an eighteen year old?
Why isn't that weird to you? Think about it. You're being underwhelmed by apathy. First, consider that these teenagers are in school 6 to 8 hours a day to see that under normal secondary school credit requirements that 2-3 hours of homework per day accompanies that in a least case scenario. There. Already there isn't enough time for dinner, let alone phone gabbing. Make it an honor student. Add a single extracurricular activity and a part time job for the phone bill. That isn't enough time to talk five hours a week.
NEWSFLASH! High school students who talk on phones for five hours a week don't do well in high school! College admissions boards amazed! Film at 11!
C'mon. Most, if not all, of these type of kids were probably dropped on their heads at birth, or on weekends, when such activities are unmetered anyway. Since when was this allowable behavior for any student expected to achieve results? Just because its a celphone, not a regular cordless phone?
I mean, really.
At this point, you have got to stop thinking of a computer as a single defined device. Even if you ignore mainframes and restrict yourself to the PC-compatible market, people use computers for many things. Cellphoneas are never going to be web-servers. They are never going to be full-blown geek machines - you are not going to program on them. But probably 90% of users never do anything like that.
The fact of interest is that CPU power is no longer a restriction - a cellphone has enough oomph to run most applciations that mist users run. Where it lacks, as you point out, is input devices, output devices, and to some extent storage.
Input on most cellphones is frankly awful for anything other than dialling numbers or very simple menu driven systems. Output on that tiny screen is poor, but not that bad. In fact, if the possibility of it beaing read on a cellphone screen stops people sending HTML email, I'll count that a win. Likewise, storage is enough for most peoples text needs, but will be rapidly drained by images, even still.
So the "killer feature" to make these work is better input. Of course, one day one day true voice recognition will arrive, delivered by a flight of pigs. Until that porcine dawn, people will keep trying to find other input mechanisms that work. Until they do, I think the proposal by the OP is, so some extent, wishful thinking.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Newsweek magazine ponders if a mobile phone will be 'Your Next Computer'
I think I speak for the large majority of the slashdot crowd when I say 'No'.
That guys "concept" looks like half a Playstation 2 controller Photoshop't onto the bottom of a Treo with the keypad able to slide up behind the screen.
No sig for you!!
Take something like the Sony Clie TH55 (such a shame they are pulling out of the market, IMHO its a fantastic bit of kit) ... advance technology by x (2,3,5?) years ... add a 3G phone PalmOS 6 (I use as an example, I am sure just as popular and *cough* stable devices will exist with Windows Mobile 200x) and you begin to have _the_ killer handheld device. Units like the TH55 and the Treo are no doubt the way of the future and how all will be, when they finally all just merge and we can all pretend we are on star trek at last </geek>
"Yup. Half Irish pub, half chinese restaurant."
You drink, but half an hour later, you're thirsty.
---
"Sorry, but according to [the] tests [we turn off and on], you are trying to post from an open HTTP proxy. "
Yes I can see it now. You forehead your 3d visorays and cognize your intended party to have via the cerebral connector, you are connected in the virtual environment of the universal web, a breazy location on a nice beach... A few gestures later and the experience is disconnected and you find yourself and a few other unfortunates in terrible car wreck.
No. You should not try to drive while making a VR cell phone call.
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
I have a Nokia 9290 Communicator, and I'm drooling over the up-and coming 9500, with a metric shitload of connectivity and usabiliity. I like the screen on it. I like the keyboard. Because of that, I don't mind the size (I keep a smaller, spare GSM phone for when I need it).
If I'm on the move, the small, mobile phone device provides me with the connectivity that I need at the footprint that i need at the time. Since I cannot lug my desktop machine with me everywhere, so times the phone (as a convergence tool) will be easier to use
I recall this quite from the startop of Crosstalk: "Easy to use" is easy to say
It's a well-known quote, but it seems applicable:
I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.
- Bjarne Stroustrup
Cell phones have a long way to go before they replace my computer, and reliability is only part of the problem. Handheld devices inherently require tradeoffs in usability.
Likely to be marked as a troll, but that's just the way the mod system works...
Since when was a cell phone not a computer? Consoles were supposed to replace the PC as the gaming platform...has it happened yet? There will always be a place for a modular consumer PC. This is PC marketing for you...telling us what we need, cause we're just too stupid to figure it out for ourselves.
The Dell Axim was my latest PDA attempt and I got a bluetooth card for it and connected to the net via my Sony t610. Pocket Outlook still just sucks for use with a regular ole imap server (I'm sure it's great with Exchange of course). It'd do braindead things like want to download all headers even though I'm just interested in last few of them. Syncing was a pain too, since it requires outlook on the desktop and active sync to sync contacts, calendar entries, etc.
I settled on the 6600 and a Mac powerbook using isync and bluetooth and couldn't be happier. For one thing, the 6600's mail app is quick and efficient for what it does, browsing latest messages. I have mine set to just download the headers of the last 30 messages (quick), then only the body if I set it. Since GPRS is built into the phone, it doesn't require anything else. And it's small. The syncing of contacts and calendar is a breeze over bluetooth and isync.
Opera web browser (paid for it extra, since it doesn't come with U.S. 6600s) works remarkably well, reformatting pages to better appear on a small screen device.
The mail has some pleasant surprises, like if you try to send a mail message and it fails due to lack of signal or whatever, it'll drop it in a mail outbox and automatically retry it every 15 minutes.
The camera on the phone is incredible too. Compare this close up shot I took with the 6600 with the same subject matter and distance taken on my Sony t610.
I installed putty, and while it works, I can't imagine it being useful for anything but maybe an emergency login to restart a failed service or something.
And accessing the net from the powerbook over bluetooth thru the 6600 is a real easy affair.
The only quirk I've seen with the 6600 is that file transfers TO the device over bluetooth only occur at about 3KB/sec -- which is way below the bluetooth spec.
The CPU speed race between Intel and AMD in recent years has been fueled tremendously by gaming. Once processor speeds caught up finally with the code bloat of business apps like MS Office, most business users really didn't *need* more speed. But PC games constantly push the hardware envelope, and as AMD provided faster chips and the gamer market bought them, Intel was forced to keep up.
While phones are definitely adapting more features and becoming more powerful, more people are using PCs and game consoles as the center of their home entertainment. Even without digital music, digital video manipulation and playback, and other uses for PCs, the PC gaming market is huge:
"Overall, 2003 U.S. sales of console games totaled USD 5.8 billion (186.4 million units) while computer games accounted for USD 1.2 billion (52.8 million units) in sales. Total game software sales in 2002 were USD 6.9 billion, with console games bringing in USD 5.5 billion in sales and computer games accounting for USD 1.4 billion. (Note: The numbers released by the ESA today do not include sales of game hardware or accessories.)"
The PC is continuing to evolve. I remember years ago when my dad told me he couldn't understand why he should buy a computer, aside from using it for accounting and occasional letter-writing. Now he uses it daily to run his business, communicate with other people, listen to music, find information, and so on.
A proliferation of other computing devices doesn't mean that the PC is going away any time soon.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I have this weird belief that cell phones should just be for emergency use or for when you don't have a phone at home. Amazingly enough I think there should only be one ring tone to lessen the confusion, cost, and increase the useability of the thing. The only feature I see of any use is the built in phone book.
:)
I honestly can't see the cellphone with a net connection. I can't see it with email cause typing is a pain w/out a regular keyboard. I can't see it as an IM cause last thing I want is constant messages beaming in. I could turn it off, but also why bother having more that can go wrong when I don't need it or get confused by it?
Finally if my kids should ever want a phone, it'll not be mine to co-own. For they shall pay for their time in full I must say and not see a dime from me to pay.
So here I sit with a poor rhyme for you, as a minority wanting a phone thats useable by me and not useable by everyone else to bother me.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Man, I remember back when I was in high school... No way did I do 2-3 hours of homework a day, and my GPA was > 3.5.
Whoever moderated this as offtopic seriously needs to read up on the topic of sarcasm.
Moral of the story? High School standards are crap these days. (I graduated HS in '94.)
I hardly talk on the phone at all, mostly to my girlfriend. Guess what? If you average ~33 minutes a day, you get 1000 per month. Do you know how easy it is to do that? If I talk to my g/f for 20 minutes (a short talk at night about our days) that leaves 13 measly minutes. That's like 3-4 short phone calls with friends! Also keep in mind that if ANYONE calls you, it's a 1 minute phone call. On the weekends, I could be getting 20-30 calls per night (they are free, but still show up in the minutes). So if it's easy for a dork like me rack up 1000 minutes a month, I don't see why it's a problem for a high schooler. By the way, I'm in a tough graduate school, and doing quite well, not a typical social flighty person.
>This is due to many reasons IMHO, from a
;)
>different work ethic --where you don't bring work
>home with you, and thus you have less reason for
>a home PC-- to cost to lifestyle differences to
>infrastructure (simply put, GSM phones are much
>more reliable and sometimes cheaper than regular
>PSTN lines).
>So, the article is not really news, it's just US
>being behind the curve on this one.
So, we're behind the curve because we have
flexible work arrangements and great wired
infrastructure?
One of the main things driving mobile phone sales is, of course, fashion. Especially among the younger consumers.
And the problem with most of these crossover devices is that they are Huge.
I know a few people with these Nokias and these T-mobile-thingies, and they just look ridiculous.
Now look at Japan.
As soon as we have normal-sized phones that do all the e-communicating and surfing we normally use our computers for, without looking stupid, then we'll see them replace PDAs for most people.
This Like That - fun with words!
If my cell phone is going to be my next PC, does that make my PS2 the next super computer?
Who do they think they're kidding? Have you seen what mobile phone companies charge for Intarweb access? Two words: highway robbery.
Tell ya what, guys...get me a laptop with built-in 3G (better yet, 4G) cellphone, that has a Bluetooth headset interface for the phone part that can operate while the laptop is in "sleep" mode, and does all the same shit a 12" Powerbook can do, and then I'll consider it. But hand-helds? No friggin' way. Too small, too easy to lose/misplace, not enough data storage for anything useful, and you're stuck with one operating system. (Yes I view OS X as two operating systems -- the *nix side of the house and the Mac side of the house.)
I guess none of this is important, though, if Slashdot is going to start posting psuedo-astroturfing "articles" as news.
blog |
It will be dificult to make powerful batteries that they fit into a cell phone.
I remember when an old AT&T "Merlin" PBX system was first installed in an office where I worked.
After a dumbfounding demonstration of its many features, a colleage muttered under his breath, "They call it 'Merlin,' because you have to be a wizard to figure it out."
So, without a docking station, it seems like an enhanced (maybe slightly bigger) iPod. When in the docking station, it seems like a laptop in a docking station.
The basic form of the home PC has gone pretty much unchanged for 20+ yrs now. It's speed and capabilities have increased and will continue to do so. The size of the display, the ease of inputing data/commands, the AC power, and the safety of the data, will keep it around for a long time as a base for the portable machines. Drop all your data on a sidewalk, or lose your compuphone once and see what a pain that would be.
You can legislate morally you can't legislate morality
Hot on the heels or arstechnicas.com flash RAID comes cell phone clusterd computing. You know someone will set it up some day. Just because it's there, and everyone shall know he is the Geek (capital G and we know it will be a man as women have lifes).
Life is what happened when Good Intentions met Harsh Reality (the brother of the more infamous Chaos).
Your phone might transform into your PDA but it's a long ways until you can expect your phone to replace your Desktop Computer.
"One day, 2 or 3 billion people will have cell phones, and they are all not going to have PCs," says Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the Palm Pilot and the chief technology officer of PalmOne.
Yes, and "one day" we will implanting WiFi in our brains and thinking in binary.
The reality is, half the people in the world have never even made a phone call. I'll hang my hat on the likelihood that, although my cell phone is great, it's not a worldwide revolution just yet.
Sigs cause cancer.
I wonder if the Japanese market (as well as Apple's case studies on it) were correct that most consumers don't want to base their digital life around PDAs--phones are a possibility, but not to the extent that they're doing here in the article.
Let's just get to the Tricoders with the wireless OC-3 bandwidth, hmm?
Convergence devices are crap.
I'd rather see a standard for wireless personal data network access and portable storage -- and let individual devices miniaturize and specialize.
E.g.
I don't want a camera phone with a bad camera interface, crappy resolution, limited features, tiny memory and nonexistant output choices.
Instead I'd like to be able to buy a wireless data storage device: HD, Flash, Removable media, whatever - it doesn't matter. Just an independent device that stores data and can wirelessly transmit it to devices that need it over a common protocol (bluetooth would be fine).
Then I can buy a phone that grabs my contact list, ringtones and games from there. No more having content locked to a service provider or a device. Then I can buy a PDA which uses the portable storage for apps, data, contact list, etc. Then I can buy an MP3 player, a digital camera, etc, etc.
I don't need my screen and battery life being sucked out of my phone when I'm just listening to MP3s. I don't need PDA processing burning through my battery when I just want to use the phone. I don't need a device which tries to wrap one bad interface around a half dozen sepcialized functions.
Furthermore, I want to be able to take my mp3 player or my phone into the gym, or the corporate offices of my clients, while leaving the camera functionality in the car so I don't violate the camera bans.
Not to mention the benefit of finally being free of the nonportability of data. No more duplicating contact lists to new devices. No more shuffling CF cards between the MP3 player, the camera, and the PDA. No more waiting for the right device to show up with the right storage solution.
Of course, I'm not holding my breath.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
will reap tremendous profits as millions of eyeballs pop out trying to read those tiny little screens.
I want my computer to be my computer, my cell phone to be my cell phone, my GPS receiver to be my GPS receiver, etc. I want them seperate, but easily interoperable.
Give me a cell phone that can get reception in my basement (see journal) and I'll buy that over my T610, even if it doesn't have a camera or WAP access.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
The oldest generation of cell phone users don't really seem to get it. They leave the phone off because they don't want to charge it, so you can't even reliably reach them. For them the cell phone is for emergency use only.
Most people I know fit into the next generation. We have our phones with us all the time, but we don't use more than a hundred or so minutes a month. The cell phone is used mostly for making plans.
The youngest generation might as well have the phone surgically implanted. They'll use thousands of minutes a month because they don't realize that real life is more interesting than a phone.
my cell phone plan is $40 canadian / month for unlimited minutes ($20 extra for unlimited wireless internet @128kbps)....
people are starting to rid of their land lines.
so 1025 minutes really ain't much.
-judging another only defines yourself
My Treo 600 does pretty much all I need to do at home. No use firing up the computer when I can hit a website from the phone in less time than it takes my computer to boot. POP3 email works great. Livejournal works fine. Etc etc.
SBC stands for Stupid Bell Company
AT&T stands for All Telephones Tapped
Awesome.
Face it, CPUs in smartfones now and shortly arriving compare favorably to general-purpose PCs of about 6 years ago, so in theory you could have a VGA out as part of a proprietary 'docking' connector and use your phone as a computer. Why _shouldn't_ it handle all the trivial stuff 80% of computers are used for (email, web, IM, mp3 playback) that can be handled handily in 200MHz?
However, PDAs really need voice recognition and natural-language HWR, and smartphones _reaalllyy_ need voice recognition.
BTW, with the Zaurus, is the USB support general-purpose or is it crippled to sync only? I mean, can you hook a Zaurus up to a USB hub and use USB hard drives, USB audio adapters, USB wifi, etc?
You're not going to want to be restricted to the phone's display when you're typing, and you're not going to want a laptop's bulk when you're not working, and maybe the compromise of a handheld suits you or maybe it's just too big... but whetever you decide on, you have to stick with it, because that's where your "stuff" is. Like in the George Carlin skit, you can take part of the "stuff" out of the main place you keep your "stuff", and copy it to another device. Then you take part of that "stuff" and beam it to someone else...
But after a while what happens is that the "stuff" is the important thing.
What you really want isn't "a phone that's a computer", it's "a phone that lets you get at all your stuff", whether that stuff is music, contacts, ebooks, news, webpages, or what have you. The phone is a user interface device optimised for realtime audio communications. The handheld is a user interface device optimised for browsing small chunks of data. The iPod is a user interface device optimised for playing music, and so on.
They all carry little chunks of your "stuff" around.
What you really want isn't a "phone that's a computer" or a handheld or a laptop, what you want is a way to keep your stuff organised, and a way to get at your stuff from whatever device you're carrying, and then you don't care whether it's a phone today or a handheld or a laptop, you've got your stuff.
So what do you do? You could keep your "stuff" online, then everything becomes a terminal, but now you're tied to cellphone coverage... which probably works in Europe, but it doesn't work in places like the USA or Australia. You could keep your "stuff" in the smallest device, or the one with most space, but then that's the one you always have to keep with you.
Alternatively, you can keep the stuff in all your devices in sync, and hope you've got the right stuff when you need it.
How about building a thing to carry your stuff? One of those USB keychain drives would be about the right size. Give it bluetooth or wifi and a USB charge/sync interface for high-speed updates, and keep all your stuff in that. Have web-based interfaces as well as file-like interfaces and syncML and everything else.
That's where your stuff is.
Plug it in to a computer, that's now YOUR computer. Bring it near a blank bluetooth phone, now that's YOUR phone, and so on...
Maybe a useful device for data access; but, I'll still want a full size keyboard and a decent (>=17") monitor to do real work on...
There's only one Integrated Fusion Device I'm interested in, and this ain't it.
What is needed is a powerful CPU with lots of memory in a small box. That is a tall order I know. Combining it with cell phone tech would be great but the bandwidth needs to be MUCH MUCH greater maybe 10G wireless would have enough bandwidth. My dream would be a system which uses cellular to call back to my NAS or renta-NAS someplace for all my personal file, and software which would be availibe to me anywhere. It would have a phone built in so I could use it like a tradition cell phone and would use bluetooth or something like it to connect to larger displays and input devices automaticly when present, so I would be carring my system with me. The rest of the time when it was just with me in my pocket I could take it out and interact with the computer via voice. The voice interface would not be that great for getting work done but it would be good for questions like, "Google me a good Mexican place for lunch within five miles" Naturally some deamon would be using the phones buit in GPS to keep the computer aware of my location. The real key to interacting with the computer the way they do on Star Trek is the fact that the computer is contextually aware. It know where you are and what your working on, so it can inteligently respond to questions and find research solutions to your problems.
I'm waiting for the day when I can do just about anything I need (games, chat, email, word processor, video, music) on a handset with more power than a P4 desktop.
Still not convinced they will ever make a good keyboard-replacement device though.
Is the technology not miniaturized enough that we can't get a cell phone on a PCMCIA card? Seriously, if I could slap one in my PowerBook with a headset (bluetooth or wire), I'd have the same functionality with a keyboard and display that I am already comfortable using. I could just move the SIM card from my phone to my phone card and be on my way.
Let me introduce you to the phone companies wet dream:
The device is your basic PDA/Phone hybrid that most phones are today, with camera of course. It has little memory of its own, doesnt dock with a PC, doesnt have a removable memory card and once the (write once) PROM has been set, it will only work on one network. You can listen to music on it, watch films, tv, browse the net, whatever. Everything you do, from adding a number to your address book (which is automatically backed up by the network) to saving a photo (which is automatically backed up by the network) requires the network, theres a small amount of memory to buffer things if you happen to be outside network coverage (unlikely) but the phone is essentially a locked device. If your a good little consumer and pay the network you get a gadget to die for, leave them and you loose all your data (unless you pay the transfer fee). It does most of what you need, but for things that require a big computer with a big screen and printer, you'll still need a PC untill they trick you out of that. The future of hardware is services, money and DRM, the idea is to make the hardware as cheap as shit, controllable by the corporations and to extract as much money from you as they can. Forget a Beowulf cluster, this is a money making cluster, 24/7 baby!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The Wired NextFest issue showed six different conceptual designs for convergence devices, which combine phone, camera, and PC functionality. Click on the thumbnails to pop up images of the various concepts, many of which are similar to the one discussed in this article.
Personally I'm waiting for retinal painter displays, unobtrusive little gadgets that can make windows appear in space in front of us. That way we can have a big screen for gaming or computer work, anywhere we are, without lugging around the hardware. Just put on a lightweight, attractive pair of glasses and it's like you're looking at a 40 inch monitor. The hardware needn't be any more expensive than a Game Boy type screen, and the functionality would be enormously greater.
The Nokia N-gauge makes me uneasy, and for that matter some of the early PDA-cell phone combos that are a bit bulky. The fact is that a cell phone has a different style of usage than a PDA and the ideal ergonomics for each are different.
Still, expanding a cell phone and putting a display and a few more controls on it doesn't strike me as unworkable. I sometimes think existing cell phones are way too small, even if it makes them easier to carry around.
Computers are multifunction devices. A lot of people here are way too young to remember the dedicated word processing devices that used to be so common. People don't think anything of using their computers for a vast range of things. Now think about setting up a handheld computer that can do a vast range of things as well, including VoIP. Then it looks more reasonable.
I can easily see cell phones with a small display being used for making voice calls, surfing the web, playing video and music, and being used for playing games as well.
It will not replace the desktop computer, people still need to sit down with a full size keyboard and a gross display, but the amount of time that people have to spend at a full computer will drop and the amount of time they can spend away from the desk will increase.
Considering the amount of time people surf porn on their desktops, I highly doubt it will ever be replaced. Hard to look at boobies while holding a 1.5 x 1.5" screen that you can't hold still.
Will we design our heads around it?
Is it the greatest innovation in telephone technology history?
Has it ever been referred to as "it"?
Not noteable, IMO a rubbish article.
I use my Treo 600 more as a computer than as a phone. When I get the mobile keyboard, it will increase my "computer time" by 10-20%. As I customize its environment with hyperlinks and apps, I expect to replace 10-20% of my "targeted" (not browsing or searching) info access with the phone. As mobile interfaces like SpotCodes become ubiquitous, probably 30-40% of my info access time will be via the mobile. And once I get a >VGA display, like hyper-Bluetooth shades, I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of my info access is mediated by a mobile, integrating phone, Net, A/V player, teleconferencer, multimedia player, GPS... a "Global Remote" that connects my senses and muscles to the material and virtual worlds, wherever I am.
--
make install -not war
I have a Kyocera 7135 and a Pitch Solo from igo.com. You can hook up any analog vga connection and ps/2 or usb keyboard and mouse. It hooks up with a USB connection. It does use a power cord, but I don't see why these things couldn't be powered by batteries. I can also get sound out of the headphone jack if I wanted to plug in speakers. I also use a really small printer over the infrared connection. The biggest limitation I have seen is the resolution of the 7135. If phones continue to get higher resolutions, it would only improve products like the Pitch Solo.
There are already a few mobile phones based on Linux available. Two Linux editions dedicated to mobile phones, the one from Mizi and the other one from Trolltech are out. As well as Linux PDAs which come pre-installed with Linux. So it shouldn't take too long until a true Linux smartphone will hit the market.
I hate cell phones. And since I use my computer for more than Mahjohngg and a calendar, I want something more powerful with a bigger screen, a real keyboard, etc. Finally, the last thing any of us needs is more distractions. ``No, I didn't realize the light was red; I was playing this great new golf game and concentrating really hard on putting.''
[That's not me, because I hate cell phones *and* golf.]
A Phone as Your Next Computer? Never.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
"there are already three times as many phones in use as personal computers."
No kidding! This has always been the case. Have PC's ever actually out numbered phones?
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
You have three computers?
Do you have a NAT router? A DSL/Cable modem? How about a car? (at least three in there) A CD or DVD player? How about a settop box? A game system? TIVO?
Most of us own a dozen or so "computers" each with enough power to run our most often used apps, and we never even think about them.
as a financially challenged semite, i just don't get it...
had it been about any other minority probably would have been moded down...
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
So this kid spends an average of 1025 minutes a MONTH on his cell phone? That rivals most business people
If he uses 1,025 minutes in one month that is equivalent to 12,300 minutes per year. (1,025 x 12 months)
Which is 33.676283938921307392522844820568 minutes a day. (12,300 / 365.242199 days)
I think if you added up all the little phonecalls through the working day a lot of business people would beat this kid. Sorry for the big numbers but I wanted to
in my opinion, a good opinion on this. despite some radical comments, this is pretty good.
Don't even try to argue. It is NOT worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.
...the killer app for it (so far) is pSSH, and even then it's a little hard to type on its microscopic keyboard, or read on a 40x25 terminal. I'm a firm believer in convergence devices, but it's going to be a long way till we even start to think about challenging laptops, much less desktops, for anything but basic internet access on the road.
A cell phone that hooks up to a virtual retinal display and includes a projection keyboard. In the near future, both memory and processor speed in even a small form factor phone would be more than good enough for things like web surfing, taking notes and even watching movies. What is limiting the size is the need to intrgrate usable input devices and readable displays. With a virtual goggels and virtual keyboard setup, I could have a small phone, but still watch movies and surf the net with, say, a built in trackball. And I could take notes, or work on files on any flat surface when I get stuck in O'Hare again.
You just described my Pocket PC Phone, almost. But the Pock PC Phones do have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. I do keep notes, voice messages, contacts, excel and word docs, check my e-mail wirelessly, browse the web, VNC into servers, use Terminal Service to administer servers, use GPS, newer Pocket PC Phones take pictures, I can listen to music, use SD memory cards for more memory, keep track of groceries, create invoices, keep track of mileage, make conference calls, Beam info back and forth, watch videos, To Do List, take notes with handwriting recognition.
It could be a main desktop if I didn't already have a desktop at home.
Hmmm, half an hour each school night = 2.5 hours Plus maybe an hour on each of the weekend days = 4.5 hours Plus lots of little one and two minute calls over the course of a week ("I'll be home at 6 o'clock" type calls) 5 hrs a week does not seem excessive at all.
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
I don't think I took a single book home between my sophomore and senior year in high school and stayed on the honor roll.
Doing well in high school is not dependant on doing any homework. I took a lot of classes where things were set up that doing well on the tests could garner a decent overall grade. I always made sure I had a study hall and actually used it to complete the little homework I did do.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
i think that is is stupid to make phones with PDA, camera, and mp3 capabilities. it would be much more sensible to simply add a phone capability to somethig like a palmone Zire 71/31/72 or a tungsten T3. PDAs already have loads of features and it cannot be so hard just to add a phone onto it! then we would have a powerful handheld with wireless net and stuff. or just get a palmone Tungsten W
43rd Law of Computing:
Anything that can go wr
fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core Dumped
The uncoordinated, noncommercial programming that led to the quick evolution of the Internet hasn't taken hold in the world of mobile phones.
I wonder why they can't just state it. This is a terrible sentence. It makes it cryptic for the computer experts to understand, and gives the non-experts something that makes very little sense for them to skim over without hurting their brain too hard.
Overall, I thought the article was pretty lame. I also thought that the mock-up was terrible. It looks really tacky, and doesn't look like anything I want to use. Are they predicting that we'll be switching from metallic finishes back to plain old playskool-type plastic soon?
My microwave is a computer, my bedside alarmclock is a computer. You just can't do that wide a range of computational tasks on either one of them.
I'm guessing there are probably far more microwaves in circulation than cell phones. So, arguably, you can claim that "microwaves are the center of our digital lives!"
Sure, you can't do as much on a microwave as you can on a cellphone or a cellphone/PDA combination. So, we rule out microwaves, as they're not as capable, even if they're more numerous?
Does that mean we can rule out cellphones and PDAs as they're not as capable, even if they're more numerous than home PCs?
What makes a computer (in people's heads, as opposed to a textbook definition) is a pretty fuzzy area. Claiming that cellphone/PDAs are more numerous than PCs and hence our main computers is simply a case of picking a subset of that definition that most suits you and then distorting it.
I subscribe to the print edition of Newsweek, and I read the article about this. Interestingly, the mock-up they showed of the "mobile phone of future" had some nice features (video, music, ...) but the one thing they didn't talk about was its (in)ability to make a phone call. It really gets me that they seemingly took the attitude of "oh, and it makes phone calls" ... for a device whose primary purpose should be to make phone calls!
IMO, mobile phones should be phones first, and misc appliances second. The attitude should be "oh, and it can also play video and music."
there are already three times as many phones in use as personal computers
And then there are also 3x as many chargers. So *what*? What's the correlation? 95% of all statistics are bull****.
Moo
When the posting mentioned the mockup design was done by Frog Design, I expected a bad design and I wasn't disappointed.
"Can you hear me now?" Doesn't look like much possibility of having a microphone and a speaker simultaneously in adequate proximity to the appropriate orifices.
There has long been criticism of people who design products that fit men's hands and not women's; well, frog takes it a step further and makes a product that doesn't look like it would fit men's hands comfortably and securely either even with a screen half the size of a PDA screen - certainly not while you are attempting to type with two thumbs. Yes, you can hold it by the tips of your fingers as pictured in the photos but try pressing it up to your ear for an hour like that.
These are the kind of design flaws I expect from the company that split the backplane (thereby doubling the lengths of some of the most critical wires in the computer) on the Next cube and put the floppy on the side of the Sun sparcstation pizzaboxes. Ever try to rackmount one of those or put it on a desk next to another computer? A front mounted floppy is unlikely to be obstructed by anything more immovable than a keyboard.
And that's not even getting into how untenable the internal design is likely to be. But, hey, maybe this "designer" phone will appeal to the shallow girls who think they look oh-so-sophisticated with unpaid advertisements for "Abercrombe" or "Tommy" plastered across their chest.
The article says "The only drawback is that the petfrog doesn't really exist"; that is a feature, not a bug.
it's called a treo.
Heh, i love those smartphones, its just like a pda. Not completely like it, but theyre getting close. Im using it a lot like a pda in my everyday.
i have written a fantastic review of my cellphone, which i use as both a small computer as well as an all-purpose device while traveling. it has an alarm clock, a notepad, calendar, etc, and it's so small it fits into a cigarette box. i love it -- would never get a blackburry because it's a waste, too bulky. who needs it when you have T9?
http://www.epinions.com/content_99109146244
also like any computer, my phone has "crashed" once. it was very interesting. there was some sort of a corruption on the memory chip and i lost my "desktop image" and games.
also it supports j2me which is sweet.
"I'm sorry Dave, I could not complete your call as dialed. I honestly think you should sit down, call directory assistance and try again."
/i for one welcome our mobile overlords...
I think the first time I actually studied for an exam was when I was eighteen or so. Ditto for homework except for the few rare cases in which some fascist bastard teacher really really insisted on it.
I guess that must be why I had only the highest average of the boys on the class (there were couple of girls who did better) and didn't get the first place on the national math contest but just the second one.
When "phones" or other portable devices get computationally powerful enough to handle the same needs as a general-purpose PC(and I mean ALL of them), then you'll see a revolution take place in which the PDA, desktop, phone, music player etc. are all converged into a single device, from which you can hook your monitor, headphones, keyboard, etc. The design will have some built-in functionality of course, but more as a backup than as the primary usage. From there, you'll see kiosks, for pay or for free, that will let you hook up your megadevice so that you can use it just like at home, without lugging all the equipment around.
You can get bluetooth and IR keyboards for the Series 60 phones, so the keypad's not quite such an issue
Screen can be a bit small at times, but it isn't too much worse than a PDA. You've got a trade off between getting more stuff on the screen, and getting the damned thing into your pocket!
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
And then.... the blue dial tone of death.
Ther are a 'minority' of Jews translates to 'judaism is not the world's dominante religion' not 'there are more white people then jews.' Jews account for only 0.2% of the world's population. A religious minority, not an ethnic one.
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
From what I've seen of the progess in OLED displays and digital ink, the comments about the screen being so small and people straining to read can be discarded as shortsided. Here are two scenarios that I think can overcome it (eventually): 1) Imagine an ultrathin, flexible display that you can dock in the device or roll up and store like a stylus, or 2) A set of augmented reality glasses (which, lets say they can be dockable too, and receives display data wirelessly from the base station) that you put on when you need a larger display.
:). It would be nice to have a glut of trained developers to help bring about these innovations, so that the cost isn't the limiting factor. Maybe I'll be speaking to my Russian, Indian, and Chinese (and whoever else) teammates, with all of us speaking in our native languages interpretted by my device (at that point, it really isn't just a phone anymore).
That is, for the things that you need to see and aren't having the computer notify you of auditorily, haptically, or of olfactory-ly
Maybe I'm just too optimistic about the future (and I don't expect to be getting these things anytime soon), but the world (including the digital world) is changing, so why should we keep the same interface that our parents used.
Now it's time for me to head home, where did I put my suitcase car?