Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
This week saw humanity’s place in the overall existence ecosystem taken down a peg by some crazy overgrown Speak & Spell that was able to out-guess some contestants on a game show and thus prove that humans are now the sixth smartest “thing” on the planet.
(The five things smarter than humans:
1. Monkeys (all)
2. Back-seat drivers (thought they may look like humans, they are really more of a parasite)
3. Computers (all except solar calculators)
4. Solar calculators
5. Kittens
While this de-evolution of the human race seemed to send shockwaves across the portion of the world that really cares about such things, I instead saw this as an opportunity for using computers to yet again make my life easier. (What would I ever do without you talking toaster?)
You see, in addition to Skynet inching closer to worldwide dominance, this week was also the annual Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain. Now, luckily this year I was not scheduled to attend the event as I was on the “off” year with my attending partner and fellow RCR Wireless News Editor Tracy Ford. (For Tracy’s love letter to the event, click here. Warning: I think she wrote this after several days of minimal sleep and I can only guess under the influence of the local Rioja.)
And by not attending this mass gathering of the wireless world into what at times feels like a room the size of an elevator, I was able to stand back and figure a way that I would never have to attend that wireless love-fest again.
Since computers are now basically smarter than us dumb humans – or at least most of us dumb humans – why not start sending our new robotic overlords off to these mega-tradeshows. They would have to be able to get more out of these events then we ever could.
While I have attended a number of these events, including the Grand Poobah of them all the Consumer Electronics Show, I have never actually been able to gather any real information while there. I assume real news is being made at these events, but for the life of me I have yet to actually find it. I can’t tell you how many times I have gone to meetings where someone will ask me about what I have seen at the show and not being able to actually recall anything farther back then about two minutes I just blurt out the word “wireless!” followed by some random collection of the words “synergy,” “platform” and “iPhone.” (But remember, that’s our little secret.)
Even if I was not working at these shows, I can’t see how humans are expected to actually “take in” these events. I remember a few years back when my brother got some crazy idea that he wanted to check out CES. Even after two full days of just checking out booths all he managed to see what about one-fourth of the show floor and when asked about what he saw all he could remember was something about “wireless,” “platforms,” “synergy” and “iPhone.” (Must be a family trait.)
At one point I thought I would be able to conquer these events if I had a better form of transportation that could whisk me around to the show floor and multitude of meetings I had somehow managed to schedule without giving any thought to actually getting to those meetings. A hovercraft? Hire a giant to carry me? Rollerblades?
Probably a bad idea.
But, now with robots obviously able to handle even the most complex human tasks (which I am declaring are attending trade shows and figuring out why “American Idol” is still on the air) I see no reason for humans – and more specifically me – need to attend any more of these events.
So to all those robots that are now ready to take over for us humans, I say “Welcome!” And I hope you don’t mind flying coach.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras courtesy of our RCRBlog at uplugged.www.rcrwireless.com:
–(From Sylvie Barak): Stephen Elop delivered what can only be described as a cheese-fest during his appearances during MWC at the Barcelona Fira this week. Laying it on thick, the Microsoft transfer refused to talk about the new MicroKia partnership, instead opting for the same old spiel about how Nokia was saving the world.
“We have an opportunity to bring forward a connected world,” said Elop noting that he wanted to be personally responsible for bringing the next billion people on the planet to the Internet via their mobile phones. “That first connection is the important one,” he blathered, while pictures of third world people speaking on mobile phones flashed away in the background.
To do that, however, Nokia is going to zone in on several key strategies, said Elop, especially in pushing the cheaper lower end phones in Nokia’s line up. Already, said Elop, over a million series 30 and 40 devices are shipped every day, not a bad stat to start with.
Even people who are poor and live in a shack want to feel great about what they carry in their hand, gushed Elop, especially if it offered them Nokia life tools to help them deal with their lowly misery.
The new CEO rambled on about “life browsers” and of course made rather a lot of Nokia’s Money service, without which, we were led to believe, most of the developing world would never be able to buy anything … not a new milk cow, nor fresh water.
But what the developing world really needs, said Elop, was social media and location based services. After all, if we in the west will soon be getting deals pushed to us every time we pass a starbucks, why not push advertise to a fisherman in Indonesia? Surely we Westerners can cash in on the poor through mobile somehow?
To that end, series 40 maps will be introduced so LBS can be leveraged at lower levels, said Elop and Nokia will be working tirelessly to “drive 3rd party innovation through local partnerships,” as an investment in the future.
Noting that he’s been jetting around the world, Elop said he’s convinced people are using mobile devices to affect life changes, and Nokia wants in on it – whether through finding fresh water sources in Kenya through Nokia’s mobile mapping, or agricultural updates via SMS or even Nokia bank accounts in India.
“Everything is about connecting the unconnected and Nokia will play a critical role,” he said.
“All of us in this room have the opportunity to bring together a connected world,” he gushed, adding “We have the passion to do this world over. This is Nokia’s purpose. We’re on a path forward…conne
cting people.”
Excuse us, but can you please pass the bucket?
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