I am constantly blown away at the technological innovation of mobile phones and what we have achieved in the last 20+ years.
I remember touching the first gigantic mobile phones in the late eighties. These weighed a ton and FX chief dealers proudly carried them around during early Tokyo lunchtime – great bragging rights to how big swinging D*&^ the Alpha Male you are. These fugly machines could fry your brains with the radio waves they emit. They could even be used as deadly weapons during gang fights, to shaft the antennae up your enemy’s arse or bash his head with the brick phone.
Then came Nokia and the world was overwhelmed with multiple cute phone designs of all shapes, colours and sizes. The first clamshell ones actually cost $3k each. I remember trying to do a conference call using one of them in the mid-nineties and the shitty batteries could only last 30 minutes each. Imagine carrying a pack of batteries on you and calling back every half an hour to reconnect to a business con-call after your phone died on you…
Then smartphone version 1.0 came along. We were so smitten by the pointy stylus and the amazing things you can do with it, like playing some stupid games on the bigger screen with it. The game changer arrived when Apple launched the iPhone in 2007.
All of us now have a device in our pocket that is many times more powerful that a 1960’s mini-computer. Name me one thing you cannot do with your smartphone nowadays – except maybe fetch your slippers. Your pet dog Bailey can do that. It is so indispensable that one will go cold turkey if it is out of our claws for a few hours. Heavens forbid if we misplaced our Precious…
Soon, we will probably have one embedded into our bodies as we become walking batteries for the machine. Matrix Revolutions Redux anyone?
Leave a Reply