At 11:39 PM 01/13/2003 -0800, Tim May wrote:
Hardly Brinworld. And T-Mobile has had it for awhile.
Why is warmed-over technology news given headlines?
Because all of us phone company stockholders hope maybe
warmed-over headlines will get them to buy the stuff this time?
Less cynically, though, some of the newer technology is making
this a bit more practical - data speeds on cell phones are
getting fast enough that if they've designed the phones right,
you can get at least CU-SeeMe quality video and maybe better,
with 64kbps, and ostensibly 384kbps which lets you do a bit better
than just talking heads video, as opposed to most of the earlier
cellphones-with-still-cameras. (Of course, if they're charging
you by the minute, you're not likely to do much of this,
though some of the cellphone companies have figured out that
they really should be selling flat-rate data.)
But it's a start.
