I remember when camera phones used to be the coolest thing you could own. The mere fact that this was the first time cameras and phones had been synthesized brought consumers out in droves. Anyone who was anyone had one, and no one minded the fact that the pictures came out looking like a pixilated Rorschach test. They could always treasure the memory, such as it was. I even found myself wondering if I could elevate my social status by buying one.
Now, camera phones are the industry standard. When I went to get a new phone upon my return from Europe, I had to convince the salesman that I did not need a phone with a camera. He was shocked, as if I had asked him to sell me a car with no wheels. Or rather, he made me feel as though I were buying a car with no wheels. The sin implied by buying a phone with no camera seemed almost too great.
I held my ground; I steered clear of the blue-tooth, and dodged the sleek siren call of the Motorola RAZR and of the Kyocera Slider. The phone salesman was relentless; his children's dinner depended on me dropping an extra $20 for the camera. I explained to him patiently how I already had a camera and didn't need another one. I walked out of the store with a standard-issue Samsung with no ringtone options, still somewhat in shock. I reluctantly set my ringtone to "William Tell Overture," hit the ignition, and peeled out of the parking lot, distancing myself from the scene.
The age of multiple gadgets is coming to an end, and it isn't a pretty thing to see. As technological advances and plain common sense raises the bar, the miniaturization of previous innovations begins.
Don't believe me? Look at the iPod - every generation of that device gets smaller and smaller. With miniaturization comes combination; already we have PDAs that act as phones, phones that play MP3s, and MP3 players that can act as flash drives. It's only a matter of time before it all gets boiled down into one simple hand-held device - a Swiss Army Knife of technology.
An apt metaphor. The Swiss Army Knife represented the pinnacle of hand tools: knives, saws, can openers, toothpicks, nail clippers and scissors, all rolled up into one little bundle. Why go buy a gargantuan belt to store one's tools when all the tools you need can fit into the palm of your hand? The utility belt makers shed a single tear the day the Swiss Army Knife hit the market.
Well it's true that history repeats itself. Give it a decade. They'll call it something hip like 'B?¶kX 40XG.' It'll be a lustrous black - like marble - about the size of three credit cards stacked on top of each other. It will contain a phone, MP3 player, PDA, scheduler, watch, calculator, flash drive, GPS locater, television with digital cable, satellite radio, game system, credit card strip, nostril hair trimmer, EpiPen injector and enough battery capacity to provide up to three external defibrillations should you go into cardiac arrest.
Okay, that's pretty cool - but is it really something you'll want to own? First of all, what will become of pockets? If everything we need is within one self-contained object, we'll only need one pocket. The cargo pants of the last decade will wind up on the wayside, thrown forcibly from the moving car of progress.
More to the point, we tend to be somewhat forgetful creatures. I know I couldn't hold on to a watch if the fate of the world depended on it. (And let's hope it doesn't, because that would be an obscure way for humanity to meet its end.) Why would we risk misplacing or losing the one object that contains everything we need in it? It would be like going into the woods, confident that your Swiss Army Knife will get you through the night, only to lose it in the river. You can't kill a bear with your bare hands, though it would make a great epitaph if you tried to.
Rather, I'd like to take multiple gadgets and just lose one of them. Then I immediately have a silver lining to my sob story. I lost my watch, but I still have my more valuable MP3 player. It doesn't have as much pizzazz the other way around, granted, but the point should be clear. I don't think it's the greatest idea to put everything into one single piece of equipment.
Here's an unwarranted industry tip: wait until they figure out a way to put all of it inside your body. The day that your phone is built into your ear, when your scheduler is wired directly to your brain, when your watch is installed in one of your contact lenses and displays the time in your peripheral vision, that's the day you go out and buy it, because then its impossible to lose and a hell of a lot harder to steal.
Alex Sherman is a senior majoring in architectural studies. He can be reached via e-mail at alexander.sherman@tufts.edu
