Text Messaging Takes Off June 14, 2004 5:58 p.m.
A friend of mine was most excited to show off her new cellphone the other day, and described the difficulties she had encountered in persuading the shop to sell it to her.
"It has no color screen!" they told her.
"Color is overrated. Humphrey Bogart didn't need color," she replied.
"No Bluetooth!"
"My teeth are just fine," she told the staff.
"No GPRS!"
"I don't need GPRS," she said. "My life's not that exciting."
"No MMS!"
"Ditto."
Pause. "What is MMS, anyway?"
Eventually the salespeople gave up and handed over a Nokia Corp. bottom-of-the-range 1100, which was what she was waving around the restaurant. It's a kind of blue, rubbery thing that looks nice but is, well, monochrome and passé. But then the lights in the restaurant went out and hey presto! Her rubbery old phone metamorphosed into a flashlight. Ah, we all sighed, impressed. Now I've got one too.
Welcome to the future of cellphones. The thing about mobile phones is that they have changed how we communicate (via 160-character bursts of text), how we perceive the world (it's never less than a phone call away, unless we left it at home in which case we go back for it). But how are our phone habits changing the world we live in -- and in the process changing what our mobile phones can do?
Here's one example: As Emily Turrettini, who runs a Web site called textually.org, pointed out in a recent posting, airports are now coming to terms with the fact that a lot of people don't actually wait at the arrival gate any more. Instead they hover around the airport terminal waiting for a call or an SMS (short message service, or text message) alerting them to the arrival of the person they're meeting, whereupon they pick them up directly. Saves time finding a parking space, saves on parking fees, and most importantly you don't have to stand behind the barrier feigning rapture at seeing Aunt Marple waddling out from customs. So now several airports in the U.S. have opened what they call "cellphone lots" where drivers can wait undisturbed.
UNDER THE WIRE
Store More
Google's new online e-mail service, Gmail, is shaking everybody up, and it may be enough to change the way we use the Internet. Its decision to offer one gigabyte of free e-mail storage has prodded competitors to try to match it: Yahoo is allowing users to store up to 100 megabytes online, while Lycos Europe is offering paid-up members one gigabyte, as is British-based Planet-Tolkien.com for $7 a month. But why stop at e-mail? While most of us are unlikely to want to store so much e-mail online, we might be interested in using the Internet as a place to back up our computer files so we can access them from anywhere. So if Google can offer free e-mail storage, why can't folk offer free online file storage?
Well, they may have to. Online storage services haven't had much luck over the years: Most of the free services have come and gone and the few that are around have never, in my view, made the process seamless enough to appeal to ordinary folk. Xdrive (
www.xdrive.com) is one that has survived, and has recently launched a second version which does a marginally better job of connecting your computer to your online drive. In July Xdrive will increase the space available per user to five gigabytes for the same $10 a month fee. That increases available space by more than 60 times. Expect others to follow suit. And, at five gigabytes for $10 a month, suddenly it may be worthwhile to keep most of one's stuff online.
Cellphone Threat
I know you're probably tired of hearing about Bluesnarfing, the trick whereby your cellphone and its data are compromised by an attacker using weaknesses in the Bluetooth standard for wirelessly linking devices. But now there's something called, for want of a better term, WAPjacking. It works like this: A bad guy sends an SMS message to your phone that overwrites the settings on your phone used for the much-maligned cellphone Internet service called WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). Those settings then switch the number used to dial up to your WAP provider, so instead your phone automatically dials a premium number and inflates your phone bill. WAPjacking seems to be a problem only in Britain so far, but it's worth keeping an eye out for. Bottom line: What all these tricks have in common is that we're just beginning to understand the vulnerability of holding in our hand an object that contains so much information, an object that can be hijacked to connect with anyone or anything without our knowledge.
Phones are not just changing the way people communicate with each other: They are changing the way that institutions communicate with citizens. In France, Ireland, the U.S., Britain and Australia schools are using SMS to inform parents of truant children. A local council in Belgium is reminding members of the community when to put out their trash for collection. Police use SMS to alert citizens to crimes and seek witnesses. This in turn is changing the way governments see SMS. Text messages can be considered as evidence in some courts. Governments from Switzerland to the Philippines are impressed enough with SMS messages to consider taxing them.
All this works both ways. Mobile phones are changing society, so society is changing mobile phones. It may seem somewhat trivial to have a flashlight on your cellphone -- until you're stuck in a cinema and you dropped your keys, or you're caught in a dark alley on a Friday night. But flashlights are just the tip of the beam. Some cellphones already include thermometers and calorie counters (the Nokia 5100, for example), while others double as MP3 players, voice recorders, cameras, video recorders, radios or Game Boys. It won't stop there. Cellphones will soon double as wallets: Simpay (
www.simpay.com) promises a Europe-wide payments system via the cellphone. Expect to see cellphones also double (if they don't already) as pens, make-up kits, coffee stirrers, laser pointers, personal-attack alarms and cigarette lighters.
I'm the first to admit that cellphones have become boring in the past couple of years. New services like 3G, MMS (multimedia messaging), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and whatnot haven't really set people on fire, because they're just faster ways of getting bigger things aboard, such as images, Web pages and video.
But that is changing. Nokia last week released the first cellphone, the 3220, that does something called "airtexting." Tap a message into your cellphone, wave it around and the message appears in little dots of light in the air. While Nokia may be the first to hit the market with this idea, Washington-based company Wildseed seemed to come up with the idea originally (
www.wildseed.com). It plans to launch airtexting handphones with Korean cellphone manufacturer Curitel in the U.S. next month.
After the initial "wow," the next question is: What would someone use that for? Cindy Smith, vice-president of Wildseed's marketing, says the company's target market is teenagers and 20-somethings looking for some visual fun at clubs. Joi Ito, a Japanese entrepreneur and blogger (
http://joi.ito.com), has suggested using the feature to heckle speakers during talks, and imagined the chaos if they were allowed in the U.S. Congress. I can imagine more prosaic uses, such as trying to get a flight attendant's attention, placing an order across a crowded and noisy restaurant, or signaling to your partner that the party's getting to you and you want to go home.
Bottom line: Airtext sounds like a frivolous, useless feature to have in a cellphone. But most people thought that about SMS. I'll wager that in the next year cellphones will start to sprout features and add-ons that aren't necessarily huge money spinners, but will both add to and alter the way we use them. In turn, expect to see society, governments, commerce and law enforcement adapt to this with new services, facilities and special SMS rest-stops. And if they don't, we could always stage the first airtext protest march, waving our cellphones above our head in a retina-popping display of public frustration.
手机短信空中写字不是梦
我的一个朋友有一天兴奋的炫耀她的新手机，并描述了她在说服商店将手机卖给她的过程中所遇到的困难。
他们告诉她，“这个手机没有彩屏！”
她回答道，“彩屏华而不实。汉弗瑞?鲍嘉(Humphrey Bogart)不需要彩色。”（注：汉弗瑞?鲍嘉是好莱坞老牌影星。）
“没有蓝牙！”
她对店员说，“我的牙齿很好。”
“没有GPRS！”
她说，“我不需要GPRS。我的生活没有那么激动人心。”
“没有MMS！”
“回答同上。”
停顿片刻。“对了，什么是MMS？”
最终，销售人员放弃了，将一个老款的诺基亚1100交给了她，也就是她在餐馆里四处炫耀的那一款手机。这个蓝色而结实的手机样子看起来还不错，但却是一款黑白显示屏并且过时的手机。先别忙，在餐馆的灯熄灭以后，变！她的老款手机摇身变成一个手电筒。我们所有人的都发出了惊叹的声音。现在，我也拥有了一个这样的手机。
欢迎来到手机的未来世界。手机改变了我们的交流方式（通过160个字符的文本信息），以及我们理解世界的方式（世界只是一个电话的距离，除非你将它忘在家里，你不得不回去找它）。但是我们的手机使用习惯是如何改变我们生活的这个世界－－以及在这一过程中如何改变了手机的功能的呢？
下面是一个例子：textually.org网站的运营者Emily Turrettini在最近发贴称，机场终于承认了许多人实际上并不在旅客到达出口等人的这一事实。这些人在机场附近逗留只为等一个电话或短信息－－通知他们要等的人已经到达，他们以这种方式直接把人接走。这既节省了找停车位的时间也节省了停车费，最重要的是，在看到Marple阿姨步履蹒跚的走出海关的时候，你不必站在围栏后面作兴高采烈状。因此，现在美国的数个机场已经开设了所谓的“手机停车区”，驾车者可以不受干扰的在此等候。
手机不仅仅改变了人们相互交流的方式：手机改变了机构与公民之间的交流方式。在法国、爱尔兰、美国、英国和澳大利亚，学校使用短信息通知逃学学生的家长。比利时一个当地的委员会通知其成员何时将垃圾放在外面以让清洁人员进行收集。警方使用短信息提醒公民注意犯罪行为并寻找证人。这反过来又改变了政府对短信息的看法。文本信息在某些法庭上可以被视为证据。而瑞士、菲律宾等国家的政府正考虑对短信息征税。
影响是双向的。手机改变了社会，而社会也改变著手机。手机上有一个手电筒看起来也许微不足道－－除非你在电影院丢失了钥匙，或者周五的夜晚你走在一条黑暗的小巷里。但是手电筒只是手机一个很小的功能。一些手机已经有了温度计和卡路里计算器（比如，诺基亚5100），而其他手机甚至包括了MP3播放器、录影器、摄像头、电台或Game Boys。不会到此为止的。手机将很快具有钱夹的功能：Simpay(
www.simpay.com)承诺通过手机在全欧洲建立一个支付系统。预计手机还将（如果现在还没有的话）具有钢笔、化妆盒、咖啡搅拌器、激光指示棒、人身攻击警报器和香烟打火机的功能。
我是第一个承认手机在过去两年间已经变得让人厌烦的人。诸如3G、多媒体短信息(MMS)、GPRS等新服务并没有真正让人们感到动心，因为它们只是使体积较大的诸如图片、网页和影像的传输速度加快。但是这种情形正在改变。诺基亚上周推出了3220手机，这是第一款能够进行所谓“空中书写”的手机。在你的手机写入一条短信息，然后摇晃几下，你书写的信息将会以小亮点的出现在空中。尽管诺基亚可能是第一个将这种想法付诸实施的公司，但总部位于华盛顿的Wildseed可能是第一个提出这个想法的公司(
www.wildseed.com)。该公司计划在下月与韩国手机制造商Curitel一道在美国推出空中书写的手机。
在“哇”的惊叹声过后，下一个问题是：这个功能有什何用处？Wildseed负责市场营销的副总裁辛迪?史密斯(Cindy Smith)称，该公司的目标市场是俱乐部中想玩出视觉花样的10到20多岁的年轻人。日本企业家和博客Joi Ito(
http://joi.ito.com)建议利用这一功能质问正在演说的演讲者，并想像了如果美国国会允许使用这一功能将造成的混乱情形。我可以想像出更为普通的使用，比如试著引起飞机乘务员的注意、在拥挤和吵闹的餐馆点菜，或者在派对中告诉你的伙伴你已经疲倦了想回家。
关键：听起来手机的空中书写功能是一项无关紧要和无用的功能。但是大多数人以前对短信息也曾持这种看法。我打赌，明年手机将发展出许多并不需要耗费很多金钱的功能，但这些功能将会带来新的并且改变旧的手机使用方式。反过来，预计社会、政府、商业和执法部门将提供新服务、设施和短信息空中书写专区以适应上述变化。如果他们没这么做，我们将举行首次空中书写示威游行，我们在头顶晃动著手机书写出我们的失望之情。
