This week’s 3GSM World Congress in Cannes is a hot ticket. So hot, in fact, that the event is moving to Barcelona next year. Fashionable French resort towns are no longer big enough to accommodate the hordes of mobile telephony honchos, not to mention their comely companions: the very latest mobile phone systems. “Visitors can expect to see smaller, thinner, more attractive third-generation (3G) mobile phones”, said Mark Newman, chief research officer at the company which runs the conference. That’s right, the communication system you hook up with is about to say more about you than ever before. Do you even know what your phone has been transmitting? And can you possibly be satisfied with that ratty old blue-and-black model you’ve been attached to since 1998?
The next wave of phones is truly tempting. They promise to be flexible, able to convert dictation to text. They will support you wherever you go, making calls over the internet. They will keep you amused, too, singing to you. It is time to sign up to their lifestyle. Consider a Bluetooth pill dispenser. It’s perfect for the pensioner who wants to use his phone to say: I’ve got a bit of a heart condition, yes, but I’ve still got my finger on the pulse. Or how about the very latest Orange Wearaphone products? What could be more convincing than sports clothing with a hands-free kit and interface inside: you may be a ski bum, but you want to keep in touch.
More daring, of course, might be a medallion phone radio or even some headset jewellery. But if you’re going to affix something almost permanently to your head, why not make it good-looking and smart?And, wherever possible, 24 carat?