Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 4 July 2003, 5:33 PM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Monday 30/6/2003
How much more can you get into a mobile phone? DoCoMo's latest model, the Mova N505i, has the usual stupidly high resolution colour display and fab camera, but that's not all. It also includes a two-speaker surround sound system, presumably so others can appreciate your tasteful selection of ring tones in glorious high fidelity, and an optical scanner in the base.
What a good idea. Every day I spot something in the paper or on a poster that I want to look up later on the Web, but every day I've forgotten by the time I get near a browser. And even if I've got a phone that's Web-enabled, typing in URLs or anything of any length is sufficiently clumsy that I never bother. With the scanner, you just swipe the phone across the page; it decodes the characters and stores them away. Can't miss.
There'll be a lot of this in the future, as phones become the information hub of our lives. Shortly, they'll sprout not just radios and televisions but enough smarts to record stuff on the move for later consumption. Doubtless they'll eventually grow the ability to test the air and check our food for contaminants, size up our dates and give us advice when shopping for clothes.
None of this is good enough for my companions in ZDNet UK. I asked around the office. What would you most like to have in a mobile phone? "A hairdryer" said one. "Oh yes. And a travel iron," said another. "Why not a complete home laundry?" said the first.
There are times when I'm glad I don't work in the mobile phone industry.
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