Fwd: Breaking labour news on your wristwatch?

[Art Shostak <shostaka@drexel.edu>]

>Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 10:49:16 +0000 (GMT)
>From: LabourStart News <ericlee@labourstart.org>
>Subject: Breaking labour news on your wristwatch?
>To: shostaka@drexel.edu
>
>About three years ago, at a conference in New York City, I heard the 
>labour educator and futurist Art Shostak attempt to convey the 
>excitement of the new information technologies to a skeptical 
>audience of trade unionists.  He went on at some length about 
>"wearable computers" -- but to be honest, I think the audience 
>wasn't convinced.
>
>Art had been at this for some time.  Back in 1997, in an article 
>entitled "On the Revitalization of the U.S. Labor Movement" he 
>talked about "advances in inexpensive devices to access the Internet 
>without a PC . . . promise to soon vastly expand the reach of the 
>Net (to say nothing of speculation that a 
>voice-activated/voice-responsive Palmtop, or very small computer 
>worn on the wrist, may be commonplace by 2005AD)".
>
>We're not yet at the Internet accessible wrist watch stage, but on 
>the whole, Art proved to be right. 
>
>There are far more users of mobile phones today than Internet users, 
>and in the year 2000, over 400 million mobile phones were sold 
>around the world.  According to one survey, by 2003, 82% of 
>Europeans will have mobile phones.  Most of those phones are able to 
>access the Internet.
>
>In other words, for hundreds of millions of people, their only 
>access to the Internet in the near future is going to be through 
>small mobile devices -- and not desktop or laptop PCs.
>
>Of course the technology now being used to display web pages on 
>mobile phones is not at all user-friendly.  Jakob Nielsen, the guru 
>of website useability, was already bashing the Wireless Application 
>Protocol (WAP) back in October 1999.  He wrote:
>
>"[WAP] will lead to impoverished user interfaces for two reasons:
>
>* a tiny screen cannot show any context, nor can it show menus or 
>visualizations of alternatives
>
>* telephone push-buttons are poor controls for advanced 
>functionality - as evidence just consider how few of the features on 
>your cell phone you use."
>
>Nevertheless even Nielsen admitted that "mobile access to the 
>Internet will be its third killer app (after email and Web 
>browsing)".
>
>A day doesn't go by without some announcement of a new product to 
>make mobile access to the Internet cheaper or faster.
>
>The newest devices offer full color, relatively high speed access to 
>normal web pages (not just WAP pages) -- most notably the Pogo 
>device now being marketed in Britain.
>
>Yesterday, Research in Motion, makers of the popular wireless 
>Blackberry device (which doubles as a personal digital assistant, or 
>PDA), announced plans to release a voice enabled version.  Not in 
>2005, as Art Shostak predicted 5 years ago, but today.
>
>All of these developments require a response by trade unionists, 
>especially those of us concerned with communications.
>
>Many of us have only recently completed the task of getting our 
>unions to use email, or develop a website.  Some of us have only 
>recently gone online ourselves.  What -- another revolution?
>
>I think that Jakob Nielsen is essentially right.  High-speed, 
>always-on, truly mobile access to the Internet with a decent sized 
>screen and proper navigation tools is the next killer application. 
>It will revolutionize the way we work -- and will vastly expand the 
>number of people accessing the net.
>
>A very good first use of the new technology would be to get breaking 
>labour news stories -- and particularly urgent action appeals -- out 
>to people even when they are away from their desktops, or don't even 
>have desktops.
>
>While WAP has been criticized for being a poor subsitute for real 
>mobile access to the web, the use of short text messaging, known as 
>SMS, has exploded in recent years.
>
>I think that we in the labour movement will have to use both these 
>emerging technologies (WAP and SMS) as well as whatever will work on 
>the Palm i705, the Blackberry, the Handspring Treo, and the Pogo -- 
>whatever it takes.
>
>LabourStart is very pleased to announce this week the launch of our 
>first two mobile applications.
>
>If you have a WAP enabled mobile phone, you will find top global 
>labour news headlines (updated every 15 minutes) on our mobile page, 
>which is located here:
>
>http://www.labourstart.org/wap/index.wml
>
>You can add this to your list of favorites on your phone.
>
>If you live in the UK, you can get occasional text alerts to your 
>mobile phone by signing up for our service.  Details can be found 
>here:
>
>http://www.labourstart.org/mobile.shtml
>
>This is just the beginning.
>
>If you are interested in having a WAP page in your language, or for 
>labour news from a particular country, let me know and I'll set it 
>up.
>
>If your mobile phone provider offers an email-to-SMS gateway that 
>works (meaning that we can send you an email message which you'll 
>receive on your phone, as a text message), let us know and we'll set 
>that up.
>
>All these services are provided to the labour movement world-wide 
>free of charge.  However, your mobile phone provider might charge 
>you to receive text messages -- find out before you sign up for 
>anything.
>
>I'm very interested to know your thoughts and particularly to know 
>if your union has begun to explore mobile Internet access.
>
>For those of you who want to know more about some of the things I've 
>mentioned, I've added some links below my signature.
>
>Have a great weekend.  And -- make sure you take your mobile phone with you!
>
>Eric
>
>Some of the sites mentioned in the article above:
>
>Voice-activated Blackberry:
>http://www.pdabuzz.com/#newsitem1012412439,3440,
>
>Pogo mobile device:
>http://www.pogo-tech.com
>
>Jakob Nielsen on WAP:
>http://www.useit.com/alertbox/991031.html
>
>Statistics on mobile phone and WAP use:
>http://www.rcb.dk/uk/staff/chm/wap.htm
>
>Art Shostak on revitalizing unions (and wristwatch computers):
>http://www.futureshaping.com/shostak/pages/essayRevitalization.html
>
>***
>
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-- 
Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Department of 
Culture and Communications, Drexel University, Phila., PA, 19104; 
215-895-2466; fax 610-668-2727.
email: SHOSTAKA@drexel.edu
http://www.futureshaping.com/shostak/
"This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to 
do with it."  Ralph Waldo Emerson