i *heart* technology
Some things are just too cool. I read this article about cell phones at work yesterday.
These are the coolest cell phones ever. Imagine being able to walk out of your house carrying only your phone. You can lock your door with it. Walk to the corner bar (or take a cab and pay for it via phone). Drink - pay for that via phone. Get home the same way. No need for anything else.
[From the article...and three of the five models come with a nifty function called FeliCa, which enables the 901i to serve as a digital wallet. You download cash into the phone's guts, then simply swipe it over a FeliCa reader at the local mini-mart. Almost anything else you might place in your wallet-a gym membership ID, video-store card or tickets to a concert-can be digitized on a FeliCa-enabled handset. Some apartment buildings in Tokyo are even making their locks compatible. Now that's convergence. ]
There's some other stuff out there that's really sweet, too. [Again, from the article Available only in Japan, the TS41 conveys sound to its user not by emitting audible waves but by sending vibrations to the cochlea through the bones of the ear. Whoa. The supposed advantage of this system is that the phone can be "heard" in the loudest of places, like the cacophonous floor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. ].
One of my friends said a few years ago that he thinks humans have hit the peak of technology. We're not capable of discovering or inventing anything new. No steam engines, light bulbs, Guttenberg presses, cars, airplanes, computers etc. He claimes that everything we develop now is just an improvement on something that already exists. Or a combination of technologies that already exist. I'd like to think he's wrong. But it is hard to imagine what could possibly be left to create.
Then there was my mass media professor who was convinced that humans would be able to teleport in the near future - in "our" lifetime. (I'm 28, so presumably in the next 50 years or so). While that would completely kick ass, I'm not convinced it will ever be possible.
Whatever technology is available in the future, I want a phone that functions as keys, wallet, phone, computer browser, and back scratcher. These things are just too sweet.
These are the coolest cell phones ever. Imagine being able to walk out of your house carrying only your phone. You can lock your door with it. Walk to the corner bar (or take a cab and pay for it via phone). Drink - pay for that via phone. Get home the same way. No need for anything else.
[From the article...and three of the five models come with a nifty function called FeliCa, which enables the 901i to serve as a digital wallet. You download cash into the phone's guts, then simply swipe it over a FeliCa reader at the local mini-mart. Almost anything else you might place in your wallet-a gym membership ID, video-store card or tickets to a concert-can be digitized on a FeliCa-enabled handset. Some apartment buildings in Tokyo are even making their locks compatible. Now that's convergence. ]
There's some other stuff out there that's really sweet, too. [Again, from the article Available only in Japan, the TS41 conveys sound to its user not by emitting audible waves but by sending vibrations to the cochlea through the bones of the ear. Whoa. The supposed advantage of this system is that the phone can be "heard" in the loudest of places, like the cacophonous floor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. ].
One of my friends said a few years ago that he thinks humans have hit the peak of technology. We're not capable of discovering or inventing anything new. No steam engines, light bulbs, Guttenberg presses, cars, airplanes, computers etc. He claimes that everything we develop now is just an improvement on something that already exists. Or a combination of technologies that already exist. I'd like to think he's wrong. But it is hard to imagine what could possibly be left to create.
Then there was my mass media professor who was convinced that humans would be able to teleport in the near future - in "our" lifetime. (I'm 28, so presumably in the next 50 years or so). While that would completely kick ass, I'm not convinced it will ever be possible.
Whatever technology is available in the future, I want a phone that functions as keys, wallet, phone, computer browser, and back scratcher. These things are just too sweet.
posted by Silver Turtle at
11:52 PM
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