I remember the first time I saw someone talking to himself.
I was working in Motorola’s Anaheim office at the time. For those of you who remember the “triangle” office, I was walking down the hall from the factory floor to the lunchroom. And there was someone I didn’t recognize walking the other way down the hall, talking to himself.
Or at least it looked like it.
In reality, he had an earpiece in his ear which could also pick up his voice, and he was talking on his phone. The phone was presumably tucked away in a pocket and couldn’t be seen, so if you didn’t see the earpiece, you’d assume that he was talking to himself.
This was probably in the middle of my time at Motorola (2000-2009), and smartphones hadn’t really taken off yet. Perhaps the guy was using a smartphone, but my guess is that he had a good old flip phone.
If he had a smartphone, he’d be looking at it.
While I happen to be typing this post on a laptop, I just as easily could have typed it on my smartphone. Those devices are so prominent today.
But ZDNET asserts that smartphones will go away.
“Right now, mobile phones are the main hub of our personal device ecosystem. But as AI integrates into glasses, rings, headphones, and portable form factors, we could see our very own handsets step off center stage, and these wearable devices take their place.”
ZDNET’s assertion appears in article about Qualcomm, a leading manufacturer of the chips that drive these newer wearable devices. These new chips offer greater computing (seven times faster), less power demand, and therefore longer battery life (coupled with the ability to charge up to 50% in 10 minutes).
With these more powerful wearables, ZDNET anticipates that the wearables will become less of a smartphone accessory and more of a smartphone replacement.
But if the smartphones go away, then my future blog posts will be written as I walk down the hall.
Talking to myself.
Bredemarket 