Technology Spring Boards the Future

            The future is fast approaching with the technology standpoint indeed. It seems like yesterday when the first ipod came out, offering an alternate of music listening to radios and CD walkmans. Nowadays we have even more high tech gadgets the likes of the iPod nano’s, iPod touch’s, iPod shuffle’s, and even iPhones. It is here where not only the iPhone but additional phones have taken flight, offering all sorts of goods and services, much to users benefit. As Rheingold detailed in his excerpt, How to Recognize the Future When It Lands on You, when he “began to notice people on the streets of Tokyo staring at their mobile phones instead of talking to them,” that the next phase of technology was beginning to wave through. He continued that exchanging “short text messages” is merely “a small harbinger of more profound changes to come” some which are beginning to reveal themselves today.

            A recent statistical analysis of society revealed that roughly 70 % has some type of mobile cellular phone. From this then, take into account how many of those phones are the up to date, popular ones complete with all new features. This instance is what Rheingold had been talking about, the shift into new age technology. Nearly every phone contains text messaging, which in some cases is even cheaper than phone conversations. The sudden convergence of the “cellphone/iPod combo points to a growing reality”, that little wireless devices are capable of immense computing power. Phones now are complete with Internet capabilities for users to surf the web, access their social networks, or look up information readily from their handheld phone. Cell phones have the ability to download games and screen savers, and also contain GPS systems to help find a route or how far a user is away from a given destination.  These  technology features of today’s cell phones offer a vast array of benefit to cellular users, making it easy to access personal and public information at their fingertips. Cell phones and mobile access have come quite a long way since Rheingold first encountered it in 2000.

            It has been a little over a decade since Rheingold had first witnessed cell phones users observing the screens of their phones while admiring texts. Technology has evolved very fast and brought much to users delight through its multifaceted features. As each day progresses newer features are added to cellular phones, gaining popularity and diminishing use of the less capable features. Though the benefits added daily may at the time seem revolutionary, in the end the are all just merely small harbingers with “more profound changes to come” slowly spring boarding technology towards the future.