Young hospital worker using her cellphone in a phone booth, Jakarta, April 2007 Either she uses the phone booth out of habit from her pre-cellphone days, or else she’s making use of a privacy feature of old technology — the sound-proofing booth — her new technology doesn’t offer. Tags: indonesia, privacy, cellphones, technology, booths, soundproofing
If you’re wondering why Sanjaya Malakar has done surprisingly well in American Idol, here’s one possible answer: dialers. Dialers are pieces of software usually stealthily installed on a victim’s computer to automatically dial expensive premium telephone numbers. The victim only finds out when they receive their phone bill. In this case, the dialer, openly available… Read More »
Interesting to see how the mosquito — emitting a tone only younger people can hear — has taken off into new areas. The Welsh company that invented the idea as a way to disperse youths has already launched a product designed to attract the same people: a ringtone their uncool parents can’t hear. (Another website selling the tone, with various… Read More »
Skype is a powerful tool because it’s found its way into the hands of people who need it most — ordinary folk. Now it and the companies that make devices to use Skype on need to understand that it’s not about telephony anymore, if it ever was. It’s about two or more people sharing each… Read More »
I’ve always held up Skype as a revolutionary tool, not for the voice over Internet thingy, although they definitely were the first to make me sound less like a frog when I talked to folk online. No, the revolutionary bit for me was that their software was simple enough for even the most technology averse… Read More »