Imustwrite

Mobiles phones: Cigarettes for the 21st Century

This phrase has been my e-mail sig since 1999. It refers to the many similarities between mobile phones and cigarettes that I have noticed over this time. Many similarities become obvious as one thnks about the comparison. A phone is compared to the collection of individual cigarettes, the pack and also the matches or lighter. I posted a list of similarities on my website a few years ago, and get lots of hits, but no comments. This posting is therefore a place where you can make suggestions and comments, give examples that I can incorporate into the main document.

Topics covered include sociology of cigarette use, social shaping of health scares, industrial structure and political influence, advertising, cultural images, gender and age issues etc.

posted by james @ 09:12 16 comments

LED Projectors

I am not sure how I got to be commenting on these things but, following an earlier post on portable video projects a journalist at New Scientist brought a new product to my attention - an LED-based portable projector from Toshiba. Although not miniture yet, just small, and in the standard form, the long awaited LED based projector solves the problems of heat, power and bulb replacement that has kept video projectors doing the same job as slide projectors from the mid-19th century. This will finally be the start of a radical change in their application. Of course now I discover that several firms have brought out these LED products this year -Matsushita, Epson. I got interested in this topic when I did some work for an optics firm last year, and we were trying to work out what future they had in information technology, based on our understanding of domestic and industrial imaging systems (that's TVs and monitors). Since moving from working on domestic technology to technology in public places it is clear there are a range of important applications and markets.

Here are the notes I sent to the New Scientist, which they managed to pick the least interesting bits!
The main areas where there are applications are

1. In personal information and communication technologies (pICTs) such as laptops - where you can project directly rather than carrying around another device, PDAs , for the same reason, cameras, and as you suggest, mobile phones (maxi-mobile format). I think the emergence of mobile television and video playback (based round media device) will be an important factor here, but we are talking 5-10 year future. We could also see them built into video games machines avoiding the need to plug into a TV.


2. The domestic space . LCD and Plasma may be all the rage now, but there is likely to be a big market in front projection TVs, not only in large US home cinema market, but in the huge Asian market where homes are very small, and space at a premium. In the domestic space the TV is an important piece of furniture, and often a very ugly one (except for a rather specific, rather male aesthetic). While flat screen TVs may take up less room, they still hog the wall, and look bad when turned off - many people will be very happy to have 'invisible' TVs that are no more than a small box on a bookshelf or in a hole in the wall.


3. Dynamic signage: projectors can place signage dynamically much more easily than LCD screens, since they don't have to be wired in where the image will appear. This will be important for public spaces, vehicles etc where messages change, adapt to those looking at them etc. It keeps the sensitive technology out of places where it can be damaged too.
   
   
4. The technology is also important for in-car head-up displays., and a huge range of Augmented Reality applications where extra information is projected onto things we are doing (especially work based tasks), giving instructions, guidance etc

However there are a number of technical issues to overcome. Most importantly is the power and heat, and the bulbs that burn out. The solution to this is likely to be LED light sources - easy for monochrome signage, but still problematic for good colour displays. However this is being solved, and for close range projectors and domestic use, brightness is not so much of a problem as in brightly lit offices and large rooms.
The projectors also have to dynamically adjust brightness, colour and picture shape for projecting at odd angles onto walls and screens, tracking moving screens, and switching projection to screens of different sizes and situation in a room. They can also be linked to eye tracking to project where ever you are looking - rather more convenient than wearing special glasses.

I still think many of these things are a way off ( over next 10 years), and do depend low power, cool light source becoming affordable and of good enough quality.

posted by james @ 08:29 11 comments

Control of personal ICTs

I have recently written a research proposal to study the control of use of personal Information and Communication Technologies (pICTs), based on my interest in how society domesticates new techologies, that is, integrates them into social and institutional life. It also relates to my comparision of cigarettes and mobile phones. The study, if it gets funded, will cover cameras, phones, music players, computers and other personal technologies that we carry into public and private places, and are often seen as challenging or disturbing public order, or threatening in some way the activities of the place controllers. Thus we see phones banned in schools, filling stations, planes, cinemas, parts of airports etc, and cameras from schools, shops, anywhere with security concerns etc. Laptop internet connection is often restricted in offices, lecture theatres and other private places. However there is far from even policy, some places will encourage pICT use, others ban it, others will look for technical solutions. I hope to look at 2 cases. 1 the case of cinemas, where you get a fine in NYC, your phone is jammed in Paris, or you are shown a funny film in London. 2. The case of schools banning picture phones. One of the coutcomes will be to look at how the technology itself is shaped by social concerns, such as the Korean government insisting that camera phones make a loud noise when. There is a continual stream of artciles inthe press about control of pICTs, such as this summer the FCC allowing mobile phones to be used on planes, and the FAA deciding not to allow them. This week's New Scientist has an article on a technology that will shine a bright light at your camera phone if you try to take a picture of a protected item. I will put up the archive of the articles I have found over the last 2 years giving examples of this phenomenon. The Proposal can be read here. Please send me any links or comments.

posted by james @ 16:02 2 comments