In an earlier post, I wrote that the cell phone was a transformative technology. The cell phone, the personal computer, and the Internet are the three most transformative technologies of the last twenty years, as they have altered the fundamental concepts of time and space as it relates to human communication.

The interesting current phenomenon is that the growth rates of cell phone usage in developing countries is now rivaling the growth rates experienced in developed countries during the 1990s.  As I mentioned in the earlier post there are 6 million new subscribers a month in India and 5.25 million a month in China.  Of course in the case of these two countries that does not just mean people moving from land lines to cell phones.  It also means people having phones for the first time. 

It was announced the other day that 1 billion cell phones were sold in 2006, the first time that has ever happened.  Nokia lead the pack with 300 million sold, and also achieved a quarterly milestone of 100 million sold in the last quarter of the year.  Given that there are 6 billion people in the world and a large number of them are either children under 10 or live in extreme poverty these numbers are amazing.  One of the reasons of course is that cell phones have become a commodity.

When Motorola began selling the first cell phone in the U.S, the DynaTac, often referred to as the brick, it cost $4,000, which at that …

This is the second week in a row of attending an important convention in Las Vegas. Last week was the largest consumer electronic convention, CES.  This week a Television convention that is in its forty-fourth year and which, for the past two decades has been very important and influential, NATPE..  Last week a convention about the screens, this week a convention about delivery methods and the content. 

The way forward can bee seen, at least in the realm of media and its consumption and how our lives have changed, by looking at these two conventions.  My thoughts on the CES show were in this post and this one.  Clearly technology and connectivity is allowing us to consume content and access information in new and transformative ways.

A look at NATPE clearly shows how much the world has changed.  Ten years ago this conference was all about Television.  Programming , scheduling, new TV technology, governmental issues and International deal making were the topics at the conference sessions.  This year there are some sixty different sessions, speeches and panels.  A quick look at the subject matter reveals the huge changes in the industry.  There are some 15 sessions on the subject of mobile, 12 sessions on ‘multi-platforms’ 10 sessions on the Internet or IPTV and 5 on the technology of distribution across the new media landscape.  Simply put, more than two thirds of all sessions were about subjects other than the traditional television business.  Ten years ago ninety-five percent of the sessions …

Ten years ago the word convergence was most often used when predicting the convergence of the television set and the computer. Granted there were things like PDAs that synched up to a computer, but the PDA could go into the pocket and the computer could not.  As we all know, it was the cell phone where convergence first showed up, combining phone, camera and PDA.  Then music was added as was connectivity to the Internet.

In the last year the excitement was the convergence in the home between the computer and the television.  This was accelerated because of the penetration of broadband into 50% (now) of US households and the advent of sites like YouTube.  Apple, with iTV and now a number of companies at the CES show are providing ways to connect these two primary institutions of the American home.

The other exciting convergence during this past year has been video viewing on phones, iPods, MP3 players and all forms of wireless devices.  This has brought about the interesting dichotomy of watching video on a two inch screen while out of the home and then watching video on a brand new 42” or larger flat screen television in the living room.  One thing to note is that at this CES show several companies are displaying ever larger flat screens, with several producing ones with 108” diagonal screens.

There are two new and interesting developments coming out of this CES convention.  As mentioned in the prior post, there are an increasing number …

It can be argued that the three most transformative technologies of the last twenty years are the personal computer, the Internet and the cell phone.  I have written often in Evolution Shift about the first two, but not of the third, until now. 

As is often the case, a look into the future first entails a look back to the past.  In 1984 there were 25,000 cell phones sold in the U.S.  In 1990 that number had grown to1,888,000 units sold, and in the year 2000 52,600,00 units were sold – a million phones a week!  That number has continued to go up.  Today, in a country of 300 million people – including infants, young children, and the aged – there are over 210 million active cell phone accounts.  We all have them.  A number of people, like me, have two. So, the cell phone is truly ubiquitous in the U.S. This of course means that the phones are a commodity; in fact a great number of people get them free with a service plan.

Twenty years ago, most of us had two phones, one at work, one at home, both connected to the wall.  Our phone conversations were therefore placed based, and if we were out and about, there was always the pay phone.  Remember using those? Back then, no one ever called you up and said “Where are you?” which is now one of the most frequently asked questions when the phone is answered. I don’t need to talk about …