|
Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 01/21/2009 The future of personal computing -
What can you do on a cell phone better – easier – and cheaper
– than you can on a personal computer ? Recently Microsoft’s
Steve Ballmer stated that it's taken around 30 years for one billion PCs to
be sold worldwide, but considerably less time for the cell phone market to
hit up to 7 billion units. With the
market for computing, web surfing, and entertainment going beyond Microsoft's
core market of the PC - Ballmer's keynote speech was notable for saying
Microsoft had to go beyond "just" the PC. But he didn’t
address how Microsoft will do that. With 7
times more cell phones in the world than personal computers, cell phones are
beginning to take over tasks previously done only by pc’s. Cell phones started out as straight
phone devices; the first cell phone text message was sent in the early
1990’s, but texting really didn’t take off until the late
90’s, and by the year 2000 it was extremely popular. People discovered
that a text message on a cell phone was like email on a pc – you could
contact someone – state exactly what you wanted to say – but not
actually have to talk to them. Today texting might be the main things
done on cell phones, as I recently saw a CNN story on a teenage who sent over
14000 text messages in one month. Fortunately she was on an unlimited texting
plan. But
texting has a very dangerous side. People talking on cell phones are somewhat
distracted from whatever they’re doing by talking to someone and having
a conversation, but with texting, they’re looking at the keyboard to
form their words, and are even more distracted. The recent case of the train
engineer who crashed his train while texting is the modern day equivalent of
the Casey Jones train wreck a century ago. Cell
phones today are very inexpensive, from the simple start-up pay-as-you-go under
$ 10 ones you can buy at drugstores, like the Trac phones
where you buy a card of usage, even up to the current top of the line
Blackberry Storm from Verizon, a features rich cell phone, priced at under $
200, with monthly plans running under $ 100. Most cell
phone allow texting, and most have a built in camera
for taking and sending picture messages too. So the ability to own a cell phone and
be able to talk to your friends- and text and picture message is affordable
to most people. In
looking at the Dell computer site specials today, a low end system will cost
you at least $ 400, and to send emails you need to pay at least $ 20 a month
for some ISP service. So one of
the reasons there’s 7 times more cell phones in the world than personal
computers is that cell phones are much cheaper – under $40 COMPARED TO
$ 400+, and also much simpler to learn and operate. Next week
part 3 of our series on the future of computing |
|
|
For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2008 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
|