Headlines and reading of the past few days indicate that it’s about to be a mad, mad cellular world in terms of technology that permeates our daily lives. On the more glib side, both Intel and Microsoft are advertising that our lives, decades ahead, are already under development. The iPhone is rumored to drop AT&T as the sole carrier. A little thing called Google Voice is/might be set to enter the mainstream? Windows Mobile’s newest release preview is nothing greater than disappointing and the Windows Phone, yup, that’s the name thusfar, is peaking out as one of the greatest buzzes online today only after barcodes. (!)
If you haven’t seen this yet, it goes by pretty quickly for our students and resembles a Minority Report, iPhone, TabletPC, tabletop computer a la 007 Quantum of Solace mix and does it real slick-like. The only car of the future is a 2006 Scion! Despite a hypocritical shredding from CNET, the commercial is fun. Perhaps the coolest of all ideas shown is the narrator wall between two children speaking two different languages. If you were really bright with speech recognition typing software and instant translator software, you could actually do that TODAY! :) Love it….
Intel has gone beyond six years to 2025 but won’t tell us exactly what to look forward to. Found an alien craft crash site did they? I’ve only seen the commercial on Hulu everytime it interrupted my new season of House (watch it). The commercial has a hand drawn feel like Juno or that Twitter app site design that one of Arrington’s sites showed a time-lapse movie of with MGMT Kids song in the background. Damitall – it escapes me at the moment. Anyway, other than a drawn 2025, it shows nothing; but they’re excited about it.
Two days ago, there was talk of one day next month being able to use an iPhone on a network not owned by AT&T. Also, AT&T is allowing the application for Skype to run on its network which would be a beast of an advance for your iPod Touch. Think about it, you’ve got the multitouch display, the ability to call any phone so long as you’re near a wireless Internet connection (good news on that below HI-FI) or in a 3G network area without having to stick it out for a two year contract with any cellphone carrier. Wicked advantage to you, my friend.
So this Google Voice buzz… It’s big and gets messy since the arguments change. AT&T says Net Neutrality isn’t practiced which plays into the hands of news today since the FCC is publicly, thank God, pushing for Net Neutrality. Apple says the Google Voice application, which is not the same thing as the Skype above, “alters the distinctive user experience,” of the iPhone. That’s a no-no for app creators and Apple is in their rights to refuse the app. Google, however, is no ordinary app producer. They’re Google. More on this stuff here.
HI-FI Highspeed bandwidth adoption blows past all expectations despite evil recession and lovely weather. A Pew Internet & American Life Project concluded from roughly 2,250 U.S.A. adults that 56% of Americans have accessed the Internet by wireless (read cellphone) means. From 2007 to 2009, the largest increase in mobile Internet access was among African-American adults skyrocketing from 29% to 48%
John Herrman from Gizmodo reviews and writes that the latest Windows Mobile 6.5 version he was given to look at was, “a superficial update, and not a very thorough one,” citing horrible Start Menu logic (a stalwart of the Windows experience), ungainly and awkward icons and refers to the process of organizing apps as “completing some kind of horrible puzzle game.”
Soooo, the Windows Phone. According to MyBlogLog’s Hot Topic BETA graph thing, which draws its stats from over a half million blogs and is part of the Yahoo! family of questionable services (only a half million, really?), interest in the Windows Phone has jumped 1,698% in terms of mentions and searches. I think, it’s pretty unclear. But has lovely colors. Some points of interest after the image….
According to TheiPhoneBlog, some may see this Windows Phone release as a non-event but it’s part of a larger, potentially successful strategy for Microsoft to jump back into action. With Windows 7 imminent and the phone running Mobile 6.5, the next update for the phone should make it a competitor which most suspect Microsoft to understand that today, it’s not yet.
We don’t speculate much because that’s not news and it’s too much typing. But if HTC is indeed already working on future Windows Phones, that’s a good thing. It seems to indicate that the direction the device is taking is the right one. HTC triumphantly brought the Dream out with Google Android and while it’s not as prevalent as the iPhone, its users are more than satisfied.
To add to the intelligence of the Windows Phone’s arrival, there are price point options. Sprint carries a full QWERTY keyboard touchscreen, 2.5-inch LCD phone priced around $150 for the rich kiddies or the older kiddies for whom $199 and up is too rich. Just as Jaguar, taken over by Ford, came out with that superb Ford Taurus named Jaguar X-Type to enhance sales thereby saving the Jaguar name, so smartly too has the Windows Phone achieved this option with Sprint.
To my students, I never suggest doing something just because everyone else is doing it. That’s foolhardy and circular. But considering the advances, achievements and utilities that can be held in your hand and the NewsBuzz surrounding applications, handsets and providers and the lovely Net Neutrality that seems to be emerging, I do urge my students to take advantage of today’s cellular technology with a year-long outlook. Get your feet wet, your hands dirty and let your fingers, once again but differently, do the walking.
So give up the Sprint Qualcomm Dual Band QCP-2700 Analog as my Dad had to (bless his resting soul) and embrace the idea that tech is surrounding you no matter what! You’ll get help along the way.
