Phones Were Cheaper When I Was a Child
My wife and I often watch science news about life-extending medical discoveries and sadly nod in agreement that we were born too soon. I have no doubt our grandchildren will likely live well past 120. As well, we sigh deeply when we see the great strides made in communications over the past several generations:
Related:
As of last year, more than half of us were using smartphones, still leaving quite a number stuck with old cellphones (1). In less than a decade however, those dinosaurs will be obsolete as the major telecom carriers deprecate the 2G and 3G CDMA networks (2) in favor of faster, newer networks.
Eventually I expect my great-grandchildren to have smartphones embedded in their brains and so a phonecall, Internet search, or text message will be executed merely by thinking about it. In fact, that is my next business idea.
Here's how it would work: you have a chip in your brain - then if you see a person wearing a shirt you like, you simply double-blink your right eye at the shirt and an RFID chip in the shirt sends you the UPC code which is sent to Google which brings up an array of retailers with varying prices and reviews. A double-blink of the left eye on the retailer from a list of sellers makes the purchase for you and since the web knows your credit card, shirt-size and address, your shirt is immediately shipped to your home.
And finally, if you hear a Muslim saying something like Islam is the Religion of Peace, an article will immediately flash before your eyes mocking that complete load of camel-manure.
A tip of the turban 
to reader Bernard Wishnia for sending the email forward at the top of the page.
ENDNOTES
(1):
Forbes, 6 Jun 2013, More Than Half Of Us Have Smartphones, Giving Apple And Google Much To Smile About
Two separate surveys confirmed that smartphone penetration has not only passed half of all mobile subscribers, but has gone well beyond 50% of all adult Americans for the first time. The Pew Research Center places the figure at 56%, up from just 35% two years ago while noting the number of adults with no cell phone at all has fallen by half in that time, to just 9%.
(2):
Android Central, 10 Oct 2012, Verizon will sunset 2G and 3G CDMA networks by 2021
You can toss this one onto your Google calendar -- Verizon will sunset its 2G and 3G CDMA networks nearly a decade from now. After recently announcing at CTIA MobileCON that it will launch its 400th LTE market 2 months ahead schedule, Verizon is talking about when CDMA will finally go the way of the dinosaurs.
The network report from FierceWireless expresses that this decade-early heads up on the CDMA sunset is important mostly for machine-to-machine (M2M) applications, and not necessarily for consumers. Verizon has been pushing LTE harder than any other carrier lately -- and already plans to start rolling out VoLTE as soon as possible -- so we'd expect most customers to move to LTE well before 2021.
