Cambrian Explosion (was Re: more on Phones Need Simplicity Before Cool Stu ff, CEOs Say)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Rod Van Meter <rdv () tera ics keio ac jp>
Reply-To: <rdv () tera ics keio ac jp>
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 10:19:46 +0900
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: Cambrian Explosion (was Re: [IP] more on Phones Need Simplicity
Before Cool Stu ff, CEOs Say)

Dave,

For IP, if you wish...

When I've given talks on this (in my former life as a Nokia employee,
albeit from the network side), I have occassionally referred to the
explosion in form factors and user interfaces as the "Cambrian
Explosion" of mobile technology.  In the Cambrian Explosion, about 540
million years ago, a zillion types of multi-celled life appeared, many
with hard body parts, including some strange forms with five eyes and
one arm, and non-bilateral bodies, and things like that.  Most of them
eventually disappeared, and we're left with fossils that make us say,
"What the heck was that?"

In Japan, the form factor battles have died down, and we're left with,
essentially, the flip phone, with a 2" color QVGA screen and 12-18 keys,
give or take.  In Europe (and to a lesser extent the US), Nokia and
others are still playing with it -- micro-qwerty keyboards, pen
interfaces, voice activation, etc.

There are some fascinating things coming out -- see Phillips'
polymervision (http://www.polymervision.com/New-
Center/downloads/Index.html) flexible display, and Sony's Librie e-book
reader based on E-Ink.  Some of these will succeed, others will go into
the "what the heck was that?" fossil beds.

So, when thinking of 3G and the need for bandwidth, I encourage people
not to be caught up in the context of what a cell phone is today --
that's not what it will be in ten years (whether 3G is the right path to
adequate bandwidth is an entirely separate question from how we'll use
that bandwidth).

As Gumby said, people will master something if it's worthwhile to them.
In Japan and Europe, they clearly have, with messaging.  Personally, I
use mine for mail only rarely, but as an aid to navigating the train
system almost daily.  Watching video clips of sumo wrestling or
examining the game record of a pro go match I do once every couple of
months.

Enough for now.  I've been meaning to write up a note on my new FOMA
N900iG WCDMA/GSM phone, DoCoMo's first "world phone".  I'll do that
later, meantime, if there are any IPers with videophone cell phones from
other providers (Europe or Asia -- have they made it to the US yet?) who
are interested in testing the interoperability, drop me a note (we may
discover nothing more interesting than that it's disabled or blocked
somewhere).

  --Rod

P.S. I am very much of the opinion that the *network* is being made
unnecessarily complex due to the operators' mindset, trying to maximize
ARPU (average revenue per user), rather than to any technological or
customer-driven needs.  Personally, I believe in the end-to-end IP
model, and think the network should be as simple as possible in the
middle.


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