Futuretech Part II: Cell Phones

Kristen Palmo’s scrapbook items regarding future cell phone capabilities brought a few interesting points to mind.

The page describing future plans for delivering television content to cell phone made me question the value of watching anything on a two inch screen for all but the most TV addicted. The article suggests there would be demand for such capabilities among business travelers who wouldn’t necessarily want to wait to see a sporting event. Personally, I’d prefer to listen to such an event than try to make out what’s happening on a tiny screen. Speaking from experience, I obserbved that many business travelers reserved the time they spent in airports and on flights for reading books. I'm only noting this here because I recall one of my undergraduate professors predicting in 1995 that no one would be reading hardcopy books in ten years.

On the other hand, Palmo’s item about the cell phone video projector (above) was particularly intriguing. The article doesn’t indicate how much such capability would cost, but it will undoubtedly become the next craze among business travelers, just as flash drives were a few years ago.