| The end user: Swallow this phone |
| Victoria Shannon International Herald
Tribune Monday, October 6, 2003 |
"I keep reminding Motorola," on whose board of directors he sits, "that the 'handset' business is, in fact, probably the wrong way to think about it because there are only 12 billion hands in the world - probably fewer because some people may only have one hand."
Of course, phone manufacturers are addressing this already by pitching "fashion" phones - they want you to change your mobile phone, or at least the face plate, as you would your watch or your jacket. But Negroponte means something beyond just designer phones.
Unlike the two cellular standards used most in the United States, CDMA and TSDMA, he said, the GSM phone standard used predominantly in Europe uses personalized SIM, or subscriber identity module, cards that can be moved around from device to device, with all the subscriber's billing data intact. So when it becomes common for people to own multiple devices that communicate wirelessly, Europe will have an advantage, said Negroponte, who maintains homes in Greece and Switzerland as well as the United States.
"Each person may have, within around five years, 5 or 10 SIM cards - one in the dog collar, one in the refrigerator, one in this device and that device," said Negroponte, who spoke last week at a technology conference in Paris. "I think that's a perfectly reasonable way to go. "GSM is perfect for this," Negroponte added, confessing that he already carried about 20 SIM cards when he travels, each a prepaid card for use in a different country.
He said some phones were now coming with an easily accessible pop-up SIM slot, where you push a button and the card automatically comes out without having to open up the case and fiddle with the battery.
Innovation will also affect other design elements. For instance, he said, "Everything is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Pretty soon, we're going to have to start putting notices on phones saying 'Do not swallow' for liability reasons."
Then again, he said, maybe we should swallow phones. "Edible computers" already exist in the form of tiny electronic "pills" that are swallowed in order to capture and transmit information about the body.
But Negroponte has other ideas. "I hate carrying my cellphone," he admitted, "and if you told me I had to swallow it every morning, and that's how my cellphone would work, I would be very happy to in order to not to carry it. And believe me, the manufacturers of cellphones would love to have them become 'consumables' in the next few years."
As far as what mobile phones look like, he said, "It's embarrassing how little innovation there is." He applauded one effort to build a cellphone into a walking cane. "It's certainly something that could be very helpful for senior citizens," he said.
"I've tried to get people to build a phone in the design of a pen," he said. "You carry it with you; it's about the right size from ear to mouth; it's shaped right for the antennae."
How would you dial the number? Write it down; the pen would have handwriting recognition built into it.
In the car industry, design is king - the designers call the shots, and the engineers have to make it work. In the handset industry, technology is king - you call in the designers afterward, Negroponte said. The result is that simplicity has disappeared, he said. "Almost everything from a phone to a camera has gotten much too complex and difficult to use." His recommendation is to engineer simplicity from the outset through good design.
Self-explanation is another way to enhance simplicity: Today's phones in theory could explain how they work through their screens and speakers, not just through paper manuals that come in the box with them, he said.
Negroponte sees other advances coming out of creative power-management. Parasitic power, for example, is power that can be harnessed from the use of a device. Pushing the keys for a phone number could generate enough power to charge the mobile phone for that call. Or, if you're making a phone call and it runs out of power, you should be able to shake the phone for a few seconds and continue talking, he said.
Some of Negroponte's ideas may sound a bit "out there," but it's useful to quote from his 1995 book "Being Digital:" "The next decade will see cases of intellectual-property abuse and invasion of our privacy. We will experience digital vandalism, software piracy and data thievery."
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Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune
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