it's true... why would anyone aroudn the world want a fucking laptop? no one seems to get the big outside point, sure the internet is dope, sure Doom 3 in africa is a worthy goal for an entrepreneur but fucking COME ON!!
people dont want a laptop, they want to be CONNECTED. you dont need a keyboard if your cellphone can dictate information to you. you dont need to give everyone a solid monitor, an 8in^2 cell screen is plenty to show mufatu the picture of the buffalo's banging on the plain.
where the hell you gonna set a laptop on the serengeti anyway? throw the mobile in your pocket... but laptops do have an advantage, they can be multi user machines. 8 people share a laptop on MTV's whatever show, so a whole village can share 12 of them. you can't rellay multi user a phone. how do you get in touch with someone when the phone they are using that day changes?
Where do you plug the bloody laptop in? power usage in both machines differs. a foot of solar panel can pour enough juice in a car battery to recharge more phones than bones in the nose of new guinan.
Where am I gonna be connected with these laptops? no network no networking. what do we say to the tribes who need 800miles of cable to get hooked up? Wifi shows potential, the same solar panel could juice a local cell tower, and the ranges on wifi routers get stretched every day with less and less power.
but it seems that both the laptop and the mobile phone come closer and closer to fulfilling our desire to communicate without quite locking in on what is needed. imagine a future where the network covers the landscape. little apps are showing up right now, you can ask an expert a question with text messaging at random. the barriers in between our minds are falling.
imagine when the wearables start looking sexy.... all you see is some chunky framed shades, they see people the're connected to through myspace highlighted in pink, with the names, faces, and contacts all available INSTANTLY. asking someone's name triggers a google search, every politico's dream.
world getting crazier every day homie. what did your great grandfather say when he saw that first horseless carraige? could he even comprehend a freeway? parallel parking? rush hour double lane switches with burning hot coffee all over your crotch so you don't miss the onramp to the 101? what about WAL-mart? no truckers no walmart right? Change is in the air.
can you imagine a future where everyone is connected. where holding a phone for 10 minutes reroutes your information so people looking for you can IM, text, video, audio, voice, walkie talkie, whatever? it's expensive to run fiber optic cable everywhere, and dropped laptops get cracked. how about captain genius puts some thought into something radical.... small scale satellite phone packages. mount the dish/server to something tall, point it at the sky. use the local broadcast/mesh network of the phones for local shite, and satellite everything outside the network. or just mesh it over to the satellite dish network over there... one big wireless network, with everyone connected. all your tribe needs to do is come up with the 3k price tag. for fun's sake we'll make it so that anyone with one of grass roots towers can use any grass roots satellite/ mesh network for free. all the tower needs is juice, so hook up the panel to a battery so the tower can run at night. if you wanted to get frisky, have every tribe pony up $200 a year. take all that cash and spend it to upgrade key network points for faster overall network thoroughput. post a 3k online grant to people who post the best hacks to the system's code. fuck microsoft, let's get ALL the big fish. from the telcos to the cable companies to the broadcast media. why pay a reporter when an on site "network animal" vids the scene with his camera, posts the reel to his "satellite tree" which bit torrents the informaiton to all the other animals through the "mesh network canopy". it wasn't the video from the news building that was riveting, it was the pictures from the street below where the first plane hit. I like my information like I like my dope, uncut, straight. don't have the best angle? someone else cammed it, jsut check the database to see what other phones were at that GPS site, did they post anything?
you need to drop the idea that the internet is a thing, or a place. the internet is HERE. it becomes more personal every day. google maps, driving directions, satellite images. you know who could kill microsoft? google, that's who. we pack more functionality into phones every day. wait till they have voice recognition dictation on your phone. fuck a laptop, I don't want to type. I want to take movies, snap photos, and take interviews from anyone anywhere. I want to have perfect strangers ask me to google the price of koi in china vs taiwan. I want to pull over on the side of the road and ask the locals the best place to eat and get directions and dishes and the number of hte place with pics of people sitting there eating. I want to know if the place is packed and if take out is an option. I wanna be CONNECTED, fuck a $100 laptop. take all of that fun stuff and put it in a phone I can take anywhere. I want people's phones to buzz when I get close because my online constantly updating trust rating is fucking skyhigh. I want people to know who I know. seven degrees of seperation man. the whole world is suddenly a lot less scary when your phone lets you know how you know everyone around you. I'm only a stranger until we both have a mutual friend.
the network is coming