"Luca Franchi" <Luca.Franchi@helloNetwork.com> says
> It seems inevitable, as mobile devices continue their evolutionary path,
one
> day all users will be able to view audiovisual content at reasonable frame
> rates as well as to engage in a two-way communication with multiple
parties.
(before going on to outline some of the usual objections - snipped)
> ....But aren't we missing something here? We are looking at a
> future scenario with today's perspective....
Yes, as someone once said, it's difficult to predict, and particularly
difficult to predict the future. However....
> ...I assure you that in the next few
> years interaction with mobile devices will change greatly.
...is in itself a prediction. About the future. Ooh - thin ice!
My favorite kind of skating....
> ....We've already
> witnessed the now-mandatory (EU and US) hands free auricular headsets,
which
> is a step in the right direction.
Before falling asleep watching "Kid", I got to see Bruce Willis being
admonished
by his secretary to "Take your phone off." The role he played up to that
point was no product-placement endorsement, mind you....and people
walking the streets talking to nobody in particular as still likely to be
pegged as
either having done too much freebase cocaine in the 80s, or too much LSD in
the 60s. Unless they are (like Bruce Willis in that movie) wearing a $2000
suit, in which case they are pegged as egomaniacs.
> ...What will be next?
Too many tranquilizers in the 00s? Oops, sorry -- started talking to
myself,
there.
Well, I think that the acid-casualty aura of hands-free talking is mostly
dispelled if one seems to be engaged in some kind of coherent activity
with one's handset, while mostly just listening on the earpiece. It's the
"talking while staring into space" thing that's eery and scary. Maybe if
your glasses go mirrored as a social signal....hmmm, maybe that's even
eerier and scarier, though.
As I've mentioned in this forum in the past,
http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/archives/2000-07/0192.html
being able to make selections on the handset while listening
to the selected audio on the earpiece might be the first major
interaction breakthrough once earpieces reach some critical mass.
And I don't know if you need video to reach this critical mass
of hands-free sets, though it might help. The main medium to be
converted is those horrible touch-tone dialogue menu trees. You
know, where you're asked "press 1 to order a missile strike on
Libya, press 2 to talk to the Secretary of State, press 3 to be
reminded of who you appointed as Secretary of State...."
(Sorry -- I'm doing a proposal for Mobile Phone One for the current
White House.) The bulk content, e.g., news stories, might still be
audio, but the navigation would be through buttons and graphical
menus.
This is, I suppose, reasonably prototypable now on i-mode, if you don't
mind what voice-to-MLD converters do to voice sound quality, among
other things.
> ....How many phones
> will be converted to goggle / headsets? How many individuals would like
to
> use a transparent screen an inch from their eye? I am open to new ideas
and
> am always willing to try new devices, but the argument inevitably always
> comes back to usability.
Count "social acceptance" as a dimension of usability, and I'll agree.
For my anti-goggles/goggles-will-come-slowly opinions-that-you-
didn't-ask-for, see
http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/archives/2001-05/0319.html
and
http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/archives/2000-11/0321.html
> ...On the other hand, safety if you're communicating
> while driving, such as a self guided car during videoconferences (only a
> couple of years away from commercial release).
But a decade away from being legal in any country. Lets keep
our pants on here.....
> Video phones will drive the market to new heights, as Nick points out,
> introducing new services and technologies that will try to capitalize on
its
> success.
But first they have to succeed. That's where I'm still coin-tossing.
[snip]
-michael turner
leap@gol.com
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Fri Jul 20 06:02:24 2001