Following the huge success of my “How to build your own Mac” article, I’ve decided to start writing these in-depth articles on a bi-weekly basis. I do have a fairly hectic schedule, so it may not be exactly bi-weekly, but I will try to post them regularly. These articles will either be technology (geek) posts, or art essays. This week, we’re going to take a look at telecommunications, including mobile (cell) phones, VOIP and Skype.

I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve been spoiled. My iPhone has been such an enlightening experience that it has spoiled me and changed my perception of how technology should be instead of how it is. It has opened my eyes to the wonderful world of digital convergence. Unfortunately, this “digital convergence” is completely flawed on so many levels. And Apple is no exception.

Here’s the problem: Everyone wants to make money, and no one wants to play with others. That’s why digital convergence will only remain a fantasy. Apple creates the most amazing technology in existence, but it only plays nice with other Apple hardware and software. My iPhone is amazing; It automatically syncs all my contacts, music and calendars through iTunes, which is synced with my Address Book and iCal, which are all synced through dotMac which syncs my Address Book, Calendars, Bookmarks, and preferences between my home computer, my work computer and my laptop. I have my entire life organized so there is no thinking involved on my part. If I add an important event to the calendar on my laptop, it gets sent around to my other machines and iPhone automatically, so I never miss anything no matter where I am. Same with all my contacts… I never have to remember an email address or phone number, because everywhere I am I have it all with me; and if I make a change in one place, all the others pick up the change as well. Pretty amazing huh? So what’s the catch? This entire scenario only works within the Apple eco-system. As soon as I introduce a non-Apple element in the mix, the whole thing falls apart. Let say I didn’t have an iPhone; If I still had my Sony Ericsson phone, I would not have all my contacts automatically imported like that. If I was over at a friend’s house and they gave me their new phone number, I would put it into my Sony Ericsson phone, but all my computers would still have the old number. I’d have to change it there too.

Apple isn’t the only company doing this. Almost every company is doing this… the only consolation is that at least Apple is doing it right. You may be wondering where I’m going with this? It’s all about the digital convergence, baby.

What is digital convergence? Well simply put, digital convergence is about interoperability between all your digital devices, such as telephone, mobile phone, computer network, digital camera, laptop, Playstation, HDTV, cable, and so on. It’s about making all these things talk to each other in a way that allows us to spend less time thinking about how to make it all work together and more time enjoying the technology. Here’s a scenario in a perfect world:

I go on vacation to Hawaii. I take a bunch of pictures of the beach. When I get back to the hotel room, my laptop sees that I have new pictures and imports them. Now I can see the pictures on my mobile phone, and show them to other vacationers. When I get home, all my pictures are on my main computer, so I can make a video slideshow. Then when my friends come over, I can show the slideshow on my HDTV. Everyone loves one picture, so I take out my mobile phone and send them all the picture. Someone suggests we call another friend to come over, so I take the cordless phone, scroll down to their name and hit call.

Sound like something out of a science fiction movie? It’s not. I can do all that right now if I wanted to. I have all the technology to do it, but digital convergence is about doing it effortlessly. Right now, I have to plug in my camera to upload the pictures. Then I have to plug in my iPhone to sync the photos. When I get home, I have to sync my iPhoto library. When I’m done making the slideshow, I have to export in a specific format for the Playsation3 to view the video on my HDTV. And I have to use Skype to select a contact by name on my phone instead of dialing the number. It should be easier than that!

If all these companies would come together and agree on a standard protocol, then we wouldn’t need all these extra steps to make it all work. Everything should interconnect with everything else. That’s digital convergence.

So where am I going with this? Isn’t this supposed to be an article about the future of telephony? The reason I started with that long introduction is because the telecommunications sector is perhaps the worst of the bunch when it comes to ignoring or avoiding standards, and even worse, it’s modeled on ancient technology that desperately needs to be updated.

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Tags: a7, bell, canada, future, mobile, number, phone, skype, skypein, technology, telecommunications, telephony, voip

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Geek. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.