keitai-l@appelsiini.net writes:
>I like you, don't get me wrong.
>I don't want to challenge you. Your plugs are too funny.
I was pondering 1) the usefulness of video phones and 2) what exactly
whoever is currently on the end of the "portals@onebox.com" could do to
meaningfully challenge and duel with someone else on a mailing list....
And then it came to me: video itself is not terribly useful - but the
screens and cpu it would require should be more than enough to play quake.
Picture the scene: phone rings, Jeurgen disrobes in preparation for
answering what he hopes he will be an "uplifting" call - (fortunately he
is in Roppongi at the time, so no-one notices) Instead of a pretty female
face, a ghastly avatar appears on his vid-phone: "Ready to fight,
little Noop?" a rasping voice demands in polyphonic stereo from deepest
Texas. "Anytime, port-hole" replies our German Knight.
4 hours and 450,000yen of bandwidth charges later, Jeurgen emerges
victorious, (anyone who can type a sentence of Chinese characters through
a phone numeric keyboard can certainly handle something as trivial as
quake) and the "eggy" is pronounced an "honorary keitai".
Dial a duel: just a little fantasy of course, but with a serious point.
The tech development for one set of services (that possibly no-one will
want) will often allow another set of services (that no-one has currently
thought of) in by the back door. I don't give a hoot about video. But I do
care about having decent cpu power, low energy use, good screens and
output devices and high bandwidth connections, because there will be so
many other things one can do with them that we have not currently thought
of doing from afar. Remember: 3G keitai are the first step to a "portable
digital hub". It is true that services sell technology, BUT the existence
of certain tech allows services uncontemplated when the tech was developed.
Technology allows changes in lifestyle: that is the biggest message of the
keitai revolution. It isn't that we will all start to use video on our
ordinary phonecalls, but we will start to use vid phones and the
additional services that their cpu, bandwidth and screens make possible
for things we would otherwise not use a phone for. It is not replacement,
it is addition.
keitai-l@appelsiini.net writes:
>I wonder why people should give up habits they developed
>the last 100years?
Gosh - you are that old? My own habits as regards phones (picked up over
the last mutter mutter years) have almost disappeared. I have a whole set
of new ones.
>
>
>So what are the advantages of video phones...how about
>underestimated business oriented schoolgirls? I am sure
>that they find a new way of making money with this kind
>of uplifting technology.
Yes - I have always thought a "real time kintama-gotchi" service would be
an obvious starter and very lucrative. But that's a whole other fantasy...
(It could be called "Dial Health" after "Delivery Health")
Nick
>Who, after all, wouldn't prefer to have the
>prospective mate in the palm of his/her hand, even
>before the first date?
ah "Dial a diddle"!
YUP! - I see a future for such phones - in Japan at least....
>
>
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Received on Thu Jul 19 14:57:01 2001