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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 02/04/2009 What is The future of personal computing .. Part 5 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. What can
you do on a cell phone better – easier – and cheaper – than
you can on a personal computer ? Last week we discussed how a cell
phone can make phone calls, and also it can send text messages and simple
emails to other cell phones and to a pc. A pc
can’t make phone calls, but it can send emails to other pc’s, and
it can send emails to cell phones, much better than a cell phone
can send an email to a pc. Another
of the main things done on pc’s is surfing the web, so can a cell phone
surf the web ? Depending
on what type of a cell phone you have, and what calling plan you have -
you’ll need a plan with internet access, a cell phone can also surf the
web. I tried
web surfing on a low end, mid range, and high end cell phone. On a low end phone, attempting to surf
the web was a complete disaster. Too hard to negotiate pages; the window
displayed was tiny, and it was incredibly slow. My
current cellphone is probably midrange, a Samsung
Sway model, and I have a Verizon calling plan that allows me to surf the
web on a pay per view basis. This is a
nice phone with a decent display, usable keyboard, camera, and
lots of features. But surfing the web to me is not a usable feature. Again
it’s too slow, it’s just hard to surf the web without a mouse,
and you only see parts of web pages.
This
brings up an interesting point. People are beginning to do web surfing using
cell phones, and there is even a new domain name available- dot .mobi - for
people who want to create a website just for cell phones to access. For more information on this you
can go to The dot mobi website .
But interestingly there’s also an emulator there where you can type
your own website in, and see what your website looks to a mobile phone, along
with hints as to how to make your website more cell phone friendly. I figure in
an emergency I could use my cellphone to surf the web. It’s also fairly
expensive, as I pay $ 2 per megabyte of usage. I borrowed
my daughter’s cell phone, a Blackberry Curve, to see if web surfing
gets much better on a high end cell phone. This is running on a 3G network, and
was much faster. The email program was Microsoft outlook, and there were some
Microsoft applications available as standard features, as opposed to as
extras on my cell phone. It had a bigger screen, but again to me it’s a
far cry from a pc screen for surfing the web, and for doing my daily pc
tasks. . So for me
today, I’ll use my pc to do pc tasks, and use my
cell phone for cell phone tasks. But I do have my eyes open to what might be
coming down that technology road. And I know Microsoft is looking very hard
too. Some people say desperately .... |
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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 |
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