LIVEdigitally

Americans get the land of the free, the home of the brave, and the last ones to get the cool stuff that comes out of Asia. CommunicAsia2005 showed some really awesome phones that I’ve decided I need to have or else I’ll most likely die. Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola had booths that vr-zone.com covered. Samsung had the phone that I fell in love with immediately. The SPH-M7000 swept me off my feet as if I were Cinderella and it was prince charming, the shoe fits!

There’s a huge number of phones and the amount of mobile phone information is almost overwhelming. I may return to the site tomorrow just to take in more of the awesomeness that CommunicAsia2005 has shown us what we can’t have just yet.

Politics in Iran make me love being in America. I get a few emails a week making fun of President Bush or decisions that the government has recently made. I’m not saying that I support or back these jokes. I do however, appreciate the fact that I can receive these and not get prosecuted. Sometimes I forget that people died in order for us to be able to joke.

Iran is on a different level than us here in the US. They are now facing problems due to text messaging. Some people have even lost the ability to text message. Iran threatens to prosecute anyone who sends a text message that denigrates a candidate. There are only 6 million mobile phones in Iran, and 67 million people, but Iranian government officials believe that text messaging may sway the votes (which makes me wonder why they are even voting if it’s like that?). I now want to take advantage of text messaging and use up those 300 text messages I pay for each month, because I can.

So here is something that art geeks might really love. A cheap 3D scanner. This scanner only costs $90, which is a reasonable price. 3D scanning tech has been out there for awhile, but not really within a reasonable price range.

The scanner is run on open source software, so you aren’t tied down to any OS. Check out the story on how this little toy was made.

On a related note, art geeks (who would love to get their hands on this 3D scanner) met up in Los Angeles this weekend for DeviantArt’s first members summit. I went down to LA for fathers day and decided to cover the event for Wired as well. Here is my coverage. All in all, they might be artsy, but deep down they are still technocrats like us.

In College I used to date a girl who lived about 50 miles away. We got along really well, we could talk on the phone for hours at a time. That’s what killed my pocketbook. Back in the mid-nineties only local calls were free. The fact that she was out of my area code made her call a local-toll call, which usually ended up in $100+/month in phone calls. It’s much easier nowadays with mobile phones offering free long distance throughout the country, but you still pay a flat rate for a certain number of minutes.

When will we be satisfied, not until everything is the internet’s favorite price: free. Niklas Zennstrom knows this more than anyone else. Along with friend and colleague Janus Friis he created Kazaa, which became bigger than sliced bread after Napster. His new venture (which isn’t so new) is Skype. Skype uses the internet to make phone calls for little to no cost. Almost every day I read about Skype and how it’s making advances and becoming more popular. Soon you will be able to make a phone call from your computer to someone’s phone and vice versa via Skype. Needless to say I lost the girl, probably since I didn’t call her enough. So instead I’ll just have to Skype my sister who lives a few hundred miles away.

I never thought I’d see the day when Norton or McAfee had protection for your phone. That day still isn’t here, but I see it coming really fast. In the 6 months of 2005 over 50 mobile phone viruses have been spotted. The most notorious of them all is named Commwarrior, which spreads itself via Bluetooth. What would a phone virus do you ask? Drain your battery, erase your phone book, send out text messages to your contacts trying to flood mobile phone networks and incur charges for the handset user. Rather malicious considering that credit cards and bank accounts aren’t yet accessible on phones.

New electronics usually follow a trend. First, they come out and we (consumers) are totally wowed by the capabilities of the new electronics that appearance is usually a grey box. After the wow has worn thin, companies have to start flowing those creative juices and create an aesthetically pleasing product. It’s still the same thing, it just looks better. And those who say looks don’t count usually have ugly girlfriends. That’s why I’m going to be first in line to get the apple shaped TV. The fire engine one is pretty amazing, and the soccer ball TV is just asking to be kicked. I wonder what will come next, how about a nice toilet shaped TV for the bathroom?