Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Welcome to My Blog!

This blog discusses the progression of cell phone technology!  It includes: technology to come, privacy issues, social changes, application changes, and physical changes.  Please enjoy! :)

Technology To Come

Voice Recognition
“Voice recognition capabilities are in the near future, where a cell phone has a personality of its own” (Hunt, 2011).  This is casually seen in the new iPhone 4 where talking to the phone and telling it what to do by voice is used more. 
Flexible Screen
Another progression that could be seen is a flexible screen. “Imagine being able to roll out the screen from a tablet to a phone and back to a tablet” (Hunt, 2011).  With this evolution from Sony new technology is in the making with endless options available for screen based software. 
Nanotechnology
Additionally the concept of nanotechnology could be in the future.  “Nanotechnology for a mobile phone allows the user to morph the phone into anything they want.  From a tablet, to an ear piece, to a watch” (Nano Morph Concept Video, 2009).  This nanotechnology video for the future displays so many ways to use a cell phone not even heard of today.  “A person can test and see if food is ripe by waving the product over the cell phone” (Nano Morph Concept Video, 2009).
Nanotechnology Morph Video --Youtube Video on Nanotechnology

References
Hunt, J. (n.d.).  The Future of Mobile / Cell Phones | The Futurist. The Futurist | The future of technology, science, art, business, politics and society. Retrieved online website on February 26, 2012 from: http://thefuturist.co/the-future-of-mobile-cell-phones
This online website gave all the insight for the cell phones of the future and displayed videos for what the future holds as well in the mobile device world.
Nokia Morph Concept Mobile Phone (full)      - YouTube  . (n.d.).       YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.  . Retrieved online video on February 25, 2012 from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw2yiOhsFsc&feature=player_embedded
This online video showed the development of cell phone evolution with the introduction of nanotechnology.

Privacy Issues with Cell Phones

My Location
Mobile devices are now equipped with “E911capablilities” or “Location On” which allow the user’s provider to know there exact location.   E911 is supposed to be for emergencies only and Location On is constant known location.  Although these technologies are available with recent Smartphones location is already known and these options do not exist. Many new Smartphones such as Android use Google technology to acquire the user’s GPS location when searching for the nearest McDonalds for example.  While allowing the cell phone to have this capability is a fast way to retrieve information, it can also be a scary one because “no federal statue is keeping the wireless provider from informing Dunkin Donuts that your visits to Starbucks have been dropping off and you may be ripe for a special coupon offer” (Koerner, 2003).  This basically means that no law makes the wireless provider keep the user’s location information private.
References
Koerner, B. I. (n.d.). Legal Affairs. Legal Affairs. Retrieved online website on February 26, 2012 from: http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/July-Augus2003/feature_koerner_julaug03.msp
This online website gave insight to cellular devices and how they affect the user’s privacy.  This gave me example of how privacy was affected.

Social Changes with Cell Phones

Relationships
Cell phone progression has put a huge change on the social behavior of everyone, especially today’s youth.  It is not very common to see a teenager without a cell phone in today’s society when a decade ago it was almost nonexistent.  Teenagers become aroused by all the possibilities cell phones now have to offer that “the device affects their relations with family and their peers” (Nurullah, 2009).  With the rise of the cell phone came the decline of face-to-face communication.  People spend more time with their face in their phone than talking to other people. 
Issue With Yourself
“A cell phone contributes to the identity assertion of a person by being a highly personalized device” (Nurullah, 2009).  A cell phone acts as a device of something to call your very own.  The owner holds possession to the device and no one can take that aspect away from them.  Alongside this mobile devices allow the user to choose settings and set their phone up just the way they want it such as fonts, wallpapers and more.  This alludes as another element of personalization. 

References
Nurullah, A. (2009). THE CELL PHONE AS AN AGENT OF SOCIAL CHANGE. Rocky Mountain Communication Review, 6(1), 19-25. Retrieved online article on February 23, 2012 from: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=c50b6fa3-5587-4ac1-97df-40c2b4a22c27%40sessionmgr10&vid=5&hid=12
This online article was published in 2009 and gave great insight information on the      progression of cell phones and how they affect social change and adolescents.

Application Changes of Cell Phones

1st Generation- 1G
These phones were ran on "Analog and limited to voice communication" (Hanson, 2007).
2nd Generation- 2G
The “second-generation phones using digital signals expanding capabilities such as text features, camera functions, and audio/video downloading” (Hanson, 2007). 
3rd/4th Generations- 3G/4G
On today’s phones one can surf the internet, check email, text, get directions, and play Uno in a matter of seconds.  This new technology has made cell phones a glamorous purchase to people and an easy all-in-one device to access many applications. 

References
Hanson, J. (2007). 24/7 : How Cell Phones and the Internet Change the Way We Live, Work, and Play. Greenwood Publishing Group. Retrieved online book on February 25, 2012 from: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/nlebk_226437_AN?sid=dc72b730-683f-42bd-86f4-960560a1dc93@sessionmgr4&vid=3&lpid=lp_17
This online book was published in 2007 and gave information very detailed accurate information on application changes in the progression of cell phones.

Physical Look of Cell Phone Progression

The First Cell Phone
As many people might know the first cell phone was abnormally huge from what would be seen today. The cell phone was so huge that it was not likely to be a mobile device, but instead a car phone. In the article, The first cell phone was made by Motorola.  In the article “The Evolution of Cell Phone Design between 1989-2009,” the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, was made available an resembled a brick.  It was white in color with large dial buttons and an eight inch black antenna on top (Webdesigner depot, 2009).

A Big Leap!
Between 1996-2005 cell phones took a real turn as screen display, menu options, SMS messaging, music downloading, and camera capabilities became available (Webdesigner deopot, 2009). These phones were small and sleek, some flip phones others just small.   Motorola RAZR, BlackBerry, and PalmOne are amongst the cell phones that became available during this time.




Recent Cell Phones and Today!
In 2007 the first iPhone came out along with the LG Voyager (Webdesigner depot, 2009). These phones are equipped with touch-screen panels and dull sides. Today the iPhone is still a hot commodity and the Andriod came out with the Droid.  These phones are completely touch screen phones and easy to fit in pocket. 


References


Design Blog - Webdesigner Depot. Retrieved online website on February 25, 2012, from: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/05/the-evolution-of-cell-phone-design-between-1983-2009/

 This online website gave all the thorough information of the change in cell phone appearance by showing pictures of cell phones made throughout the previous years and what is to come.