Friday, April 3, 2009

QWERTY Cell Phones Dominate


In my quick check of technology updates (which included a WiiMote-operated lawn mower...) I came across something that was very interesting not just from the sociological perspective, but also very pertinent to our research! Apparently, the biggest cellphone trade show happened this week in Las Vegas and there were some interesting developments. Apparently, the QWERTY (keyboard-style) cellphone has overtaken the numeric keypad that mimicks normal telephones. Why? The demand for cellphones that are more text-message friendly has gone up much higher in North America, where there were three times the amount of text-messages sent in 2008 than 2007. At this same trade show was the first economy priced QWERTY-based cell phone, all in hopes of making text message friendly phones more affordable.
The other big move in cellphone technology was towards cellphones with touch screens, with the majority of cellphones coming out having either touch screen or QWERTY pads or both.

Here's the article:
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090403/ap_on_hi_te/tec_cell_phone_show_new_phones

Hope you find it as fascinating as I did. And don't go craving those new models too much!
photo from sparklette.net

3 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness.. I didnt realize how guilty I was until I read this!!!! I have been totally categorized and I never even knew. I know that as a society we are advancing technologically at an incrediable rate (I know for sure that 4 years ago I would not have been fulfilling a course assignment via blogger) but I never really noticed until I read this article. What it is that our cell phones are capable of and how important they are, or rather how much of a label we give them, is most interesting. It is such an epidemic that most cell phone users have to have one with a QWERTY board of some kind. Why is this? Whatever the reason for society to place so much value on things such as this is amazing.. turing one tiny electronic device into a social must have and a social-can not live without.

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  2. Good snag, Eternal. I purchased my wifi device specifically because it was QWERTY. Guess that makes me an early adopter, eh? ;) I use it primarily when I'm out of town, but instead of using the webphone "talk" feature, I keep in touch with my family and colleagues by skype. I find that I'm in constant contact with the folks back home, chatting throughout the day and evening. I never talk with them so much when I'm "really" at home. But I would not bother if I didn't have a QWERTY keypad. Too much trouble when I could just email. The wifi device is the best possible solution for the way I want to be connected.

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  3. I hear Skype is the next big upcoming thing? I have never used it, but it sounds interesting! Someone will have to show me how it works... I know many military families who use skype (i think) to communcate with their significant others who are deployed overseas! It is amazing our technology today and how important it is to our society to think of new and better ways to stay in constant communication with others.
    I wish we had skype when I was younger and my dad was deployed!

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