New Mobile Phone Technology

Today, nearly every person owns at least one mobile phone. Some have even more, with a separate mobile for work and for family. As the needs people have for phones have increased and more and more are being bought, phone companies have looked to gain profits by creating new technologies. Some of these technologies include capacitive touch screen abilities, which can detect how the screen or screens on the phone are being pushed, and FTIR multi touch, which can accurately read varying amounts of pressure over a large space. These technological advancements get many people excited with what the future holds for mobile phone technology, and could change the way we communicate in the future.

It’s been surprising to see over the last decade that mobile phones have had many changes in style and fashion, just as clothes have. While a bit over a decade ago any mobile phone was seen as a sign of status, the large “brick” look that the first phones had quickly went out of fashion, and cheaper and smaller phones began to be developed. Today, color screens are basically a must, and screens that take up the entire mobile phone are now used by those wanted to keep up with the latest trends.

What actual enhancements to the phone does this latest trend provide? Since there is no keypad to these new phones, touch screen technology is being employed. This doesn’t just involve users pressing buttons that appear onscreen. The user can actually appear to be contacting the programs they use physically. Pages can be flipped through, websites can be scrolled down and folders can be opened in finger pushes that recall real word activities.

Not only are these technological improvements attractive to the customer, they’re necessary to get people to keep buying mobile phones even when the one they have works perfectly fine. This is called “perceived obsolescence” and generally means the same thing as fashion. Many young children and older people who like to keep up feel a twinge of embarrassment when showing the fact that the phone they own is a model over three years old, and does not have all the latest features of something like the iPhone. The developers of the latest technology of course encourage these notions of being left behind, as this means their customer base will increase in size.

Perceived obsolescence has an unintended positive side effect. Third world countries depend on what the Western world throws away, in order to get these items at a reduced price. This means they are able to have perfectly good clothes that went out of style in the West a few years ago. If you ever travel to Africa, you’ll also see the phones of a couple of years ago being sold, as the first world purchasers have gone on to the next big thing and are uninterested in buying the old phones. This means that in Uganda, where people make in a month what a Western person makes in a day, these disadvantaged people are able to own quite functional phones, with mp3 playing abilities and camera options.

The use of mobiles around the world has drastically changed because of people’s self-consciousness over style. It’s better to purchase phones based on the technological advances they provide, rather than worrying about the style of the phone you buy.

Technorati Tags: capacitive touch screen, FTIR multi touch

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!