Keitai

Research is fun, you find all sorts of neat stuff…

Our Cell Phones, Ourselves, by Christine Rosen

Great article from the New Atlantis Journal. Draws from an astounding cornucopia of research to examine why we use mobile devices, how we feel about them and how they affect our lives.

With all these accoutrements, it is not surprising that one contributor to a discussion list about wireless technology recently compared cell phones and BlackBerrys to “electronic pets.” Speaking to a group of business people, he reported, “you constantly see people taking their little pets out and stroking the scroll wheel, coddling them, basically ‘petting’ them.” When confined to a basement conference room, he found that participants “were compelled to ‘walk’ their electronic pets on breaks” to check their messages. In parts of Asia, young women carry their phones in decorated pouches, worn like necklaces, or in pants with specially designed pockets that keep the phone within easy reach. We have become thigmophilic with our technology—touch-loving—a trait we share with rats, as it happens. We are constantly taking them out, fiddling with them, putting them away, taking them out again, reprogramming their directories, text messaging.

On the Mobile—The Effects of Mobile Telephones on Social and Individual Life, by Dr. Sadie Plant

A wonderful booklet (PDF) prepared for Motorola. I first read about it in Mark Curtis’ “Distraction: Beign Human in a Digital Age ” and just had to find it when I read about it again today. A must read (as is Mark’s book by the way.)

In French it is called ‘le portable’, or ‘le G’, which stands for GSM. The Finns have adopted the term ‘kanny’, which sprang from a brand name but also refers to an extension of the hand. In German it is the ‘handy’; in Spanish it is ‘el movil’; Americans still call it a cell phone. In Arabic it is sometimes called ‘el mobile’, but often a ‘telephone sayaar’ or ‘makhmul’ (both of which refer to carrying) or a telephone gowal (air telephone). In Thailand it is ‘a moto’. In Japan it is ‘keitai denwa’, a carried telephone, or simply ‘keitai’, or even just ke-tai.

Cell Phones Are the New Peackock Feathers

Hilarious and enlightening article by the San Francisco post detailing a British study of cell phone use amongst the population which culminated in an article entitled “Mobile Phones as Lekking Devices Among Human Males”

In nature, a lek is a communal mating area where males gather to engage in flamboyant courtship displays, and females stroll by to judge the performers and presumably choose the fittest, most resourceful or most amusing of the lot. Hammer-head bats, sage grouse, bowerbirds, walruses, Ugandan kob and fallow deer are among the species that engage in a lekking-style courtship system. And so, too, it seems, do some humans, at least in the pubs of Liverpool.

More on the Digital Divide

Ethan Zuckerman is always such a wealth of information on the realities of life, business and politics in emerging nations. His post “Africa Calling - SND MNY 2 YR MBL” for World Changing offers a great perspective as does this one which discusses the wonderful Grameen Phone intitative.

Grameen had 1138 branches in Bangladesh, 2.3 million borrowers, 94% female, with $33 million lent per month. The core model - a woman borrows money from the bank, buys a cow, sells the milk and repays the loan. So why can’t a cellphone be a cow?

On a similar topic, the Ericsson white paper “Communication For All” offers concrete examples of ubiquitous communication through intelligent infrastructure, taxation and smart ‘total cost of handset ownership’ models.

If mobile communication is to be made available to everybody, operators must find ways to remain profitable while keeping services affordable. Addressing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for operators is imperative. Technical solutions are now available that make it possible for operators to charge low tariffs, while remaining profitable. New business models, such as network sharing between operators, can help reach new users, especially when building network coverage in rural areas.