One hundred and thirty five years ago, Alexander Graham Bell changed the way we live. The telephone was invented, and every generation that has lived from that day, has taken the antiquate “Speaking Telegraph” and bettered it for their offspring. The manual telephone exchanged was replaced by direct dial, and the 80’s gave us voicemail and huge uncomfortable cordless handsets with a very short range.
With the late 1990’s, the internet came into play, and things started to change. The miraculous fax machine is now outdated, and cellular phones became commonplace, in fact, many of my own friends and family no longer have a traditional landline, relying on VOIP should they need a local number.
The ball set in motion by Bell has lead to one thing after another. We live in a day and age of mobile email, SMS and instant communication, even voice mail is considered to be technology of yesteryear. Business cards of 2009 have email addresses, twitter usernames and Facebook is considered a business tool.
When our friends, family and co-workers expect us to be reachable 24/7, I am suprised it took until December 2008 for anyone to live tweet a plane crash (@2drinksbehind) or other national emergency. The internet is being bought to handsets faster than ever before, and the cellphone is no longer just a cellphone, it’s a camera, calendar, handheld computer and more.
Germany is pioneering the supermarket of the future, allowing customers to use their camera-phone to scan bar codes on their groceries, and the mobile network is starting to be seen as fair game by hardware and software companies too. 2008 was the year of the mobile, with the iphone become popular with users no matter their age or professional needs, the blackberry going touchscreen, and Google phones battling for their share of the market too.
Every couple of years I think to myself how far technology has come, and every time I do, I am setting myself up for surprise once again. Evolution of this kind is fueled by the basic human need of companionship - and as I write this post, someone out there is writing code that will make the world a little bit smaller before the year is out.
Yosef Silver Tech & Mobile android, blackberry, communication, google, iphone, twitter