Press Questions

Yesterday a press conference was held at the IBM Research Lab where I work, and I presented the latest Presence and Communication Technologies to the press. It was an interesting experience, partly because these were not technology experts and everything I described was very new and exciting to them.

One of the questions that the press asked our lab director was whether we do any research about the possible consequences of the technologies we are developing. I thought that was an interesting question. When I took the stage I mentioned this blog to them and emphasized that while we cannot stop the advancement of technology, we can ensure public awareness of its advantages and disadvantages.

Speaking of press and modern communications, it turns out that kids in Japan are writing novels .... on their cell phones! There is also a college in Japan that is offering its courses both over the internet and over mobile phones. Read more about both here.

Mobile Phones of the Future

Ever wonder what the next generation of mobile phones hold in store. I'm not talking about 2G, 3G, 3.5G, etc. What will be the big changes in terms of not only connection speeds, but the ergonomics of the phones themselves?

Yes, today's kids and more and more adults can text at amazing speeds and even new lingo has been born around texting. However, the tiny keypads and displays are without a doubt a challenge. Being somewhat of a gadget freak and of course being involved in Telco Research, I will pull out my crystal ball and give you my best guess at what we might begin to see.

Displays as we know them today will remain but will be augmented by miniature projectors. Instead of squinting at the small screen while browsing the internet you can project it on the wall, back of a seat or the table in front of you. This will also be a huge improvement for the elderly and other people who's close up vision is less than perfect.

In addition, we will begin to see more and more text-to-voice and voice-to-text capabilities. Text-to-speech will be used to read us chat, SMS, and email messages while we are driving and in other situations where we prefer to listen than to read. This technology exists today, although sometimes the result is a bit too monotonic to be enjoyable. In the future though, who knows, maybe you'll be able to choose your favorite actor's voice to hear your messages.

Speech-to-text is a harder nut to crack but progress is being made. We are already starting to see some start ups providing email and SMS transcription services, although they are not yet fully automated. Jott is one such example.

In addition to speech recognition, I believe we will see some interesting breakthroughs in terms of keyboard ergonomics. All of the major handset vendors are working hard to provide small but comfortable keyboards for their smart phones. However, I believe that in this area the breakthrough will be when they find a way to project a full size keyboard onto a flat surface. I actually found such a gadget that can be connected to your phone via bluetooth, but I've never actually tried it.

As for the geaky bluetooth ear pieces that we see on so many people, I'm not sure how their future will pan out. With mobile phones being used as mp3 and mp4 players the desire for stereo ear pieces will increase. Today's stereo bluetooth ear pieces for cell phones have wires, though not connected to the phone, making them less than attractive in my opinion. In addition, music quality is not as high when listening over bluetooth. Here my crystal ball says that someone will develop ear buds that can be put in each ear with no connecting wire, using some new kind of near range communication protocol.

In a few years we'll have to come back to this post to see how accurate my crystal ball proved to be. For an interesting wish list related to cell phone chargers, you might want to take a look at this post from Telecopalyse.

Cell Phones & Health

After reading the title of this post you probably thought, "Oh no ... yet another article on whether cell phone radiation is detrimental to kids health." Rest assured that I am not touching that one with a mile long pole! However, after striking fear into the hearts of my dedicated readers (all 1.5 million* of them) about the dangers of modern communication to our kids, I decided that it's important to remember the advantages as well.

The ability to reach out for help in emergency situations is one of the many reasons that parents by their children cellular phones, but of course you don't need to read my blog or anyone else's to know that. Putting parents numbers on speed dial is the most basic way to make sure you can be reached in an emergency.
However, in medical emergencies children are not always able to make the necessary call either because of injury, illness, or sometimes just plain panic. As a result many countries have initiated campaigns to request that cell phone users add an entry in the contact list of their phone containing the name and number of the person to contact in order to obtain the child's (or adult's) medical history, illnesses, allergies, etc. When emergency personnel arrive they can then look for the special entry in the child's phone and easily make the call to the correct person to obtain crucial information that could affect treatment.

In the United States and Britain it is recommended to give the entry the name ICE (in case of emergency). In non-English speaking countries different acronyms or names are used. In Israel for example, 101 (the equivalent of 911 in the US) is used. So to add an ICE number in your phone in the US or Britain you would add an entry that looked similar to the following:

ICE Jim 1-555-654-1234

Eilish O'Regan points out in his article another important health related use for cell phones. Have you ever sat in a doctor's office with a child trying to describe symptoms the child experiences but that are not evident during the appointment with the physician? Or, probably I should ask ... who has not been in this situation? The child had a fit or seizure, turned blue, red or whatever color, has an intermittent odd rash??? No matter what you do though, it doesn't happen in the doctor's office? So, take a picture or video with your mobile phone! Obviously a higher quality camera is preferable, but since your phone is more likely to be with you use it. A picture is worth more than a 1,000 words in these situations. I know I once had a very weird phenomenon in one of my children diagnosed this way.

* If you believe that I have 1.5 million dedicated readers, then you probably believe that I am a belly dancer in my spare time. Since I am not, I will be honest and share with you that to date I have had about 200 readers from countries such as the US, Canada, England, Ireland, Israel, India, Kuwait, New Zealand and Croatia. Thanks to all of you who are following this blog!