The Future of Tech – “Intuitive” Phones

Notes From The Social-Loco Conference

Recently a conference was held in San Fransisco which discussed the direction of technological development — what can we expect from our devices in the next few years? Rest assured, smart people are working hard to bring us what we need.

Image source: SF Gate (online)

It seems that the most important thing is mobility.

And social networking.

Why?

“With the convergence of social networking and mobile phones becoming more pronounced, tech companies are working toward a future when those devices are beyond smart and become intuitive.“

“Intuitive”? That sounds good, right?

“Using built-in accelerometers, GPS systems and compasses, a phone can have a “sixth sense” in determining when its owner is driving to work or sitting down to lunch, speakers at the Social-Loco Conference said. And then the phone can tap into a social network to make contextual recommendations, such as routes to get around a traffic jam or a new dish to try.”

Location awareness: Don’t be fooled by that pleasant & helpful sounding “route around a traffic jam” and focus instead on “a new dish to try”. They don’t give a rat’s *bottom* for being so helpful as getting you somewhere on time — they want to serve you ads, plain and simple. Ads based on what store you happen to be nearest to at the moment.

Why?

“The conference at the Mission Bay Conference Center focused on social networking, location-based services and mobile phones, trends that are particularly important to the biggest social network of all, Facebook.

Generating revenue from mobile users is one of the key investor concerns that dragged down Facebook’s stock price after its debut as a publicly traded company last month. The company previously warned it did not have a proven method of generating revenue from mobile.”

Today’s Geekspeak Translation: “Generate revenue” = serve up advertisements

Bah. I am getting sick-up and fed. “Loco” (Spanish for nutso/cuckoo/bonkers) is right.

Just what I want! More ads! On my phone! Yay!

Is there no escape? Hasn’t anyone woken up to the fact that we humans have become adept at tuning out/ignoring ads as “white noise”? (Solution: double their exposure! If that fails, TRIPLE it!)

In other lunacy: Somebody told me how I could be “Mayor” of my local mall on foursquare..

“foursquare, is a location-based social networking website for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Users “check in” at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates nearby. Location is based on GPS hardware in the mobile device or network location provided by the application. Each check-in awards the user points and sometimes “badges”.”

I guess this is “modern marketing”?

Is everyone 15 years-old? All of a sudden? Foursquare just may be the single dumbest concept I’ve yet encountered. (I guess when you’re 15, you want to know where everybody is, all the time…? )

*     *     *

You may have noticed that my VodPod videos are gone. That is because the simple and effective video sharing service was recently purchased by a company run by 15 year-olds, who immediately broke it [aka “FAIL”], and also changed its name to Lockerz (where using a “z” instead of an “s” makes you hip, slick, and trendy!)
But .. now I can have something called “decalz”.

Click the link where my widget used to be. Take a look at Lockerz (“A Social Life That Pays”). There you’ll see the future…

Earn “Pointz”!

There’s something seriously – fundamentally – wrong here.. And I don’t think it’s me.

Coming Soon

Source for today’s topic: Bloomberg: Conference looks at social, mobile possibilities

Today’s Quick Tip: Set your phone’s “location awareness” setting to “9-1-1 Only“. Trust me. It’s nobody’s concern what store you happen to be walking past right now.

Today’s quote: “People are always telling me that change is good. But all that means is that something you didn’t want to happen has happened.” ~ Meg Ryan

Copyright 2007-2012 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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