Thursday, March 27, 2008

Better Technology, More Facts, Better Politics

TUAW writes:

The iPhone transforms people like me from insufferable know-it-alls to insufferable know-it-alls with the entire Internet in our pants. (Or fashionable handbag.) (Or manziere.) (BRO!) Google and Wikipedia don't equate to wisdom and understanding, but they provide inexhaustible streams of on-the-spot factoids. End those "Who's right?" arguments fast.
Most phones today are using GPRS for data, which is painfully slow. GPRS still does miracles when you are on the go and don't have any other option, but it is not "Internet at your fingertips". Because of this, you still rarely see people, and even geeks, take out their phone to check a fact during a discussion.

All this of course will change with 3G, faster processors, and cheaper phones. We can now be confident that a few years from now we'll all have a phone in our pocket or purse that will enable us to very comfortably access the Internet.

Will this change the nature of face-to-face conversations? Will the phone succeed in becoming a tool that enhances our face-to-face experience?