Strange days indeed. I love my smartphone and use it in a variety of ways everyday, least often as a phone. Whatever I pay for dial tone, if I do, is too much. I rarely make actual telephone calls, but, rather, use text messaging. Nearly all the calls I receive are from telemarketers with that credit card balance hustle where you press one to speak to a human being (and thus sidestep the National Do Not Call Registry, since, technically you called them, if it please the court of public opinion). I've always dreamed of being incredibly mean to one of their minions when they launch their sales pitch but it never works out that way.
I love the camera, both the still as well as video, built into the phone. The still camera in the smartphone is far superior to the just-a-still-camera-and-nothing-else I use at my work. The problem with it is the same old song: the operator behind the eye piece. I think we need some constants in the universe and my inability to take pictures has become one of them.
But, speaking of constants, we're about to have one less as Eastman Kodak, already taking on water in a sea of economic red ink, announced yesterday they're getting out of the camera business, all of the camera business. The Brave New World has not been kind to Kodak and it's very probable they have far more yesterdays than tomorrows in terms of economic viability.
I'm not suggesting cause and effect but I do confess to feeling a little guilty when I glance at my smartphone quietly on charge as I type this. I wonder what will disappear next from our collective consciousness and then from our memories as easily as it vanished from our shelves. Another past we've been passed out of and a shared reference of generations for generations that becomes a Trivial Pursuit answer even as that gets replaced by Angry Birds. Almost can't wait to see who taps Paul Simon on the shoulder, tells him to cap the camera and call it a day.
-bill kenny
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