E.T. never claimed Maxwell Smart was a phoney homey, hangin’ round Brooklyn talkin’ into a shoe. He was just trying to connect to da homelands himself. Can you imagine what it’d be like arriving on another planet and having to deal with call-waiting, elevator electronica, and never ending mazes of number menus all leading to the same cheerful, vacant, robotic voice? Press ‘1’ for what really clogged up the 3D spa last week, ‘2’ for a regurgitated press release, or ‘3’ for Jean Poole’s latest voicemail message.
Your Finger on ‘3’
(assorted frog and harmonica noises, followed by husky Swedish rollerskater voice: )
“Hi, you’ve reached the Technoscape laboratory. Dr. Jean Poole is currently unavailable (sigh). If you leave your name and number or email address, we’ll make sure the 3D homing pigeons get this important information to him as soon as possible.”
One of Those Weird Moments
You know, the ones where you both stop talking on the phone because you can hear another overlapped conversation taking place. And god you wanna find out just how saucy / incriminating / illegal / plain weird the other conversation is. And then you realise the other people are using finger phones.
Finger Phones
Obviously, they must be employes from NTT DoCoMo’s Media Computing Lab, who’ve snuck home a couple of their prototype fingerphones. You know, those finger phones < www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,19264,00.html > currently being developed, those wearable wireless phones that consist only of a wristband. These phones vibrate rather than ring, and the wristband contains a tiny microphone the wearer speaks into. The wristband also contains a device that converts voice into vibrations that travel through the hand, the finger and into the ear canal.
To answer incoming calls, the wearer taps the index finger and thumb – that’s it – and then sticks a finger in one ear to hear the person on the other line. I kid you not, check out the website. NTT DoCoMo hopes to release the device in 2005. Thing is, what the staff are actually talking about on their fingers, is their favourite eyeball phones.
Eyeball Phones
How’s that ? You’ve just got an inside scoop from peeps in tha fone biz, overhearing that they like the stand alone orange video phones the best . And you were waiting for George Jetson to return your call with a mere internet phone using streaming media technology, a crappy webcam, a TV VideoPhone or from one of the video phone chat rooms? Kinda makes you feel lonely when no-one calls doesn’t it? Need to get yourself on one of those SMS mailing lists.
Renting A Crowd
Ahh, remember the ‘battle of Seattle’? A mass swelling of active bods, and a broad spectrum of peoples targetting the bad sides of globalisation at the world’s biggest corporate get togethers. It has also become famous for the sophisticated level of communications established amongst the protestors. The mammoth indymedia.org project was one outcome of course, the code contributed by Sydney’s cat.org.au. Another tactic was the use of text message mass-mailing systems for mobile phones.
The Princess of Pop
Apparently the Minogue vocals were ‘lame-assed’ on a recent TV appearance, but fans can still find ‘information, gossips and a forum to discuss freely about one of Australia’s best exports’ at a mobile phone community established at upoc.com. And if keeping up to date with Radiohead’s Amnesiac tour, or getting voicemails from Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction doesn’t ring your bell, you can always start your own mobile phone community at this website, a free service that enables you to exchange text and voice messages with your friends/ fans on your mobile phone or text pager.
Typing Messages To Save Money
At upoc.com you can send messages from your mobile phone, net phone, or PC, but as obsessive ICQ users (such as DASE Team 5000) know, ICQ has been able to send sms text messages for quite a while now. You can also send messages from the web, from sites like www.freesms.com.au along with wads of text based advertising.
And Still You Want More
If you’ve read this far, it’s bordering on a fetish. Take a walk in the park. Feel the sand between your toes. Try zen and th eart of skateboarding. Obsessive phone users shouldn’t give fetishes a bad name. Do you really want junkmail in your spinal column? Or internal beep noises everytime someone sends you a message?
Some people do
www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables
& www.i-glasses.com
Outta credit.
Sidebars:
www.a1h.com
Revenge of the Nerds. You might have noticed Telstra provoke the wrath of BigPond Cable users with their recent 3Gb a month download limit. This is where the data-gobblers fight back.
Videophone.net
Catch up with George Jetson, and a complete run down on the latest in internet phones, crappy webcams, TV VideoPhones and video phone chat rooms.