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Topic: The Mobile Phone Industry Must Die. DIE! (Read 836 times) |
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Walter Watts
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The Mobile Phone Industry Must Die. DIE!
« on: 2007-03-27 13:40:26 » |
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Go John!!!
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PC Magazine
ARTICLE DATE: 03.26.07
The Mobile Phone Industry Must Die. DIE!
By John C. Dvorak
Let me preface this entire column by saying that I hate mobile phones and think they are the bane of modern society. I personally seldom carry one and when I do it's a prepaid cheap disposable. My mobile phone bill amounts to around $20 a month using this practice. What's yours? Furthermore, almost everyone carries a phone nowadays, so when I need to make a call I can just ask to borrow one. Most everyone obliges. And I'm not practicing this because I'm cheap. It's the principle.
So now we have a slew of Asian companies going in and out of business trying to sell various handsets loaded with all sorts of needless features. A classic example of what these phones can do was expressed on a video I put up on my blog here. The affable Jeff Bonforte, now of Yahoo!, describes a Nokia phone that does just about everything but slice bread. He describes a process where the phone takes a picture then automatically sends the picture to a blog site and then passes it on to some photo-sharing system that gets routed directly to his mom. How sweet.
So what does mom think when some drunk gets hold of the phone in a bar and starts taking upskirt pics? I mean really. This entire lash-up is not something I'd ever want. Just because you can use various complex mechanisms to do weird things doesn't mean you have to or should do them.
Anyway, the entire handset industry is boiling down to Motorola and Nokia with everyone else falling by the wayside. Now we hear that Palm is going to be bought by one of these two behemoths. I had actually written a couple of years back that Motorola was going to become an also-ran with its shoddy designs. Then came the RAZR and that was the end of that theory. Now the industry has become a fashion business with nifty designs, cool names, and enhanced features.
And fashion is meaningless if you don't show it off. This means people with the coolest-looking phones are constantly flashing them, either to check for e-mail or to see what messages were left. I would love to stomp on every phone pulled out unnecessarily by some idiot who just has to show off a shiny gadget.—next: Putting the World on Hold >
The phone as a societal mechanism has always been disruptive, in the sense that it gets an inordinate amount of priority in day-to-day activity. You can be standing in a long line at a store, and when the store's phone rings you are put into a holding pattern while the phone caller gets the proprietor's attention. Once in a while the proprietor will say, "I have a lot of customers here waiting to be served. I'll have to put you on hold." But it's rare, since the caller will invariably hang up, as if that was an affront, so the sale is lost. Over time the phone caller ends up in a special priority situation.
The same holds true with the mobile phone. How often have you heard, "Hold on, I have to take this," from someone you are physically standing in front of and chatting with? The world is put on hold when a mobile phone rings. The fact is, no one "has to take" the call. People choose to take the call. Is anyone going to drop dead on the spot if they don't? It seems unlikely. Whenever someone you're with answers the phone, you should immediately flash your middle finger and walk off.
These devices have done nothing to improve the quality of life or the national productivity. If anything, they have done the opposite. Yes, they are great in an emergency and useful for finding someone in a crowd or for getting directions when you are poorly prepared and lost. But that's about it. Instead, they are used for needless chatter and to give the illusion that you are some sort of big shot as you bellow demands into your device while in a public place.
Personally, I hope none of the handset makers ever turn a profit and they all go dead broke. I feel the same way about the miserable carriers and service providers who are all one inch short of being out-and-out rip-off artists.
The bigger question is: How did we ever let this happen?
Copyright (c) 2007 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:The Mobile Phone Industry Must Die. DIE!
« Reply #1 on: 2007-03-27 15:46:43 » |
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[Blunderov] Well, if mobile phones died out (due, say, to carcinogenesis) it would be a tragedy for the movie industry. Not since Griffiths and the invention of the optical cut has any device been discovered which so rapidly advances a plot line. The Politburo and I sometimes speak of movies as being Pre-cellphone or post-cellphone.
In my estimation the formal arrival of the cellphone in moviedom was the occasion of Tarantino's incomparable "Pulp Fiction".
http://garage.freebsd.pl/pulp.html
"Vincent is still driving like a stripe-assed ape, clutching
the phone to his ear. WE CUT BACK AND FORTH during the
conversation.
VINCENT
Lance, this is Vincent, I'm in big
fuckin' trouble man, I'm on my way
to your place.
LANCE
Whoa, hold you horses man, what's
the problem?
VINCENT
You still got an adrenalin shot?
LANCE
(dawning on him)
Maybe.
VINCENT
I need it man, I got a chick she's
fuckin' O.D.ing on me.
LANCE
Don't bring her here! I'm not even
fuckin' joking with you, don't you
be bringing some fucked up pooh-
butt to my house!
VINCENT
No choice.
LANCE
She's O.D.in'?
VINCENT
Yeah. She's dyin'.
LANCE
Then bite the fuckin' bullet, take
'er to a hospital and call a
lawyer!
VINCENT
Negative.
LANCE
She ain't my fuckin' problem, you
fucked her up, you deal with it --
are you talkin' to me on a cellular
phone?
VINCENT
Sorry.
LANCE
I don't know you, who is this,
don't come here, I'm hangin' up.
VINCENT
Too late, I'm already here.
[Bl.] Perhaps there are superior claims? Candidates?
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Walter Watts
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Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in
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Re:The Mobile Phone Industry Must Die. DIE!
« Reply #2 on: 2007-03-27 20:47:22 » |
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LANCE
She ain't my fuckin' problem, you
fucked her up, you deal with it --
are you talkin' to me on a cellular
phone?
VINCENT
Sorry.
LANCE
I don't know you, who is this,
don't come here, I'm hangin' up.
VINCENT
Too late, I'm already here.
-----------------------------------------
WALTER
The whole thing ain't my fuckin problem.
Somebody else fucked it up. They can deal with it.
Are you typing to me on a digital computer?
BLUNDEROV
Sorry.
WALTER
I don't know you, who is this, don't come here, I'm loggin off.
BLUNDEROV
Too late, already in the chat logs.
--------------------------------------------
;)
PS--ie. "[Bl.] Perhaps there are superior claims? Candidates?"
You're right Blunderov.
I think that claim pretty much substantiates the importance of the damn invention.
But it just shatters so much peace and quiet.
I'm glad I retired just as the device was managing to double and triple the work week of any hapless individual forced to carry one by his employer.
Best to you,
Walter
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Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!
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deusdiabolus
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NEVER underestimate monkey!
     
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Re:The Mobile Phone Industry Must Die. DIE!
« Reply #3 on: 2007-03-29 02:19:16 » |
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I agree with Dvorak's article and I believe I can answer his question.
We, as creatures of fascination and obsession, cannot help but flock to the latest major technological development like moths to a flame. This behavior has become far more rabid in modern society, now that the unspoken projected desire is to be cool. Being cool, of course, means being in the trendiest places and having the latest, hippest things. We let this happen because we, as a majority, can't help it. The "ooh shiny" factor is in everyone and most people simply go with it.
This is also why credit debt and multiple mortgages have become a way of life for many people. Having evolved into creatures of comfort, we see others with nice things and we feel that since they aren't any better than us, we should have them too. In some areas and neighborhoods, it's practically a competition. Sport-Utility Vehicles, hot tubs, designer clothing, jewel-encrusted sunglasses and watches, iPods...most of these things are unnecessary and yet we see that everyone else is doing it, so we have to do it too. Celebrity worship does not help this any, especially since most people don't realize that famous and powerful people often get these items for free (because it's all about promotion).
So that's why it happens. It would be nice to know what to do about it.
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:The Mobile Phone Industry Must Die. DIE!
« Reply #6 on: 2007-04-17 04:00:34 » |
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[Blunderov] Calling your honey on a cellphone is getting more difficult it seems.
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/041607EB.shtml
Are Mobile Phones Wiping Out Our Bees?
By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
The Independent UK
Sunday 15 April 2007
Scientists claim radiation from handsets is to blame for mysterious "colony collapse" of bees.
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.
They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.
The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.
The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.
CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.
Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."
The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".
No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.
German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.
Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.
Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."
The Case Against Handsets
Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer, take decades to show up.
Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.
Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.
Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically, doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from constant texting.
Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety recommendations, largely ignored by ministers.
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