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when I'm staggering around,
Friday Night, blink drunk, crying, my mobile will 'know where I
am' and direct me to the nearest curry house
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I
gave in this month and got a WAP Internet mobile phone. What a fool.
I am now technically "wapped up" (a phrase I hope won't
catch on). My geekier friends are impressed when I pull it from my
shoulder holster like the LAPD. And I can be pleased that this one
new technology the Americans do not dominate. Hah.
Problem is, though, WAP appears to be rubbish.
I was told this was the Next Big Internet Thing. In the future,
my mobile will be a TV, radio, walkman, shop, and garage door opener
- combined.
And when I'm staggering around, Friday night, blind drunk, crying,
my mobile will "know where I am" thanks to location-finding
technology and push useful info at me: nearby cash points curry houses,
and doorways to vomit in.
The problem is, this isn't the future. In fact for WAP it's around
early 1990. It transfers information at 9.6K baud (compared my 56K
at home). It cuts out. And it costs me 10p a minute to cut out.
When I finally get a WAPsite, all I get is rubbish. I didn't quite
fall for the silver 3D man on a surf board flying through an amazing
universe of noughts and ones, but I didn't expect such lame generic
portal crap: news headlines, cinema reviews, weather, sports, blah
blah - the kind of stuff you can get ooo - I dunno - from the evening
paper?
That leaves the other WAP 'killer-ap' - email on the move. That sounds
good but why not just SMS me? Or even better, ring me up. This is
my mobile after all.
They say that WAP is a solution looking for a problem. They say
that market forces are driving its inception, not real need. They
say that the next generation mobiles - only 3 years away! - will have
open connections, no dial up views, video on demands etc.
What we don't hear is that we have to subsidise the development of
this new technology by forking out £££'s on crappy
old WAP.
Nice.
by davidm
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