interesting read

Just a quick post. I came across an interesting book today working in the library called constant touch: a global history of the cell phone. It discusses the history of the radio and its transition to the consumer, and its facinating because it talks about all the political, economic, and social factors which were amazingly heavy in its developement.

What I found interesting was that so many modern cell phone companies started off as military technology contractor spin offs. Orange was an arm of British Aerospace, and Vodafone began from the defense electronics Racal group.

The book also talks about why the major cellphone providers are predominantly scandinavian: Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm, etc. The nordic countries were the first to collaborate and decide on a international protocol. They had a strong influence in bringing the EU to use GSM.

Back in America, the split of Bell had massive repurcussions in the the development of the cell phone, because all of a sudden all these little different firms had control over tiny zones. With the rise in the number of users, even as the smaller firms were swallowed up, the US split the bandwidth even smaller, and began cutting up the seconds people talk- so that only 1/30th of a second was a voice and the other 29/30ths went to a bunch of other people. Nobody notices, so things stay the same.

Makes me glad I've got GSM. Anyway, its an interesting read which really hightlights the changes in technology and consumer culture globablly within the last twenty years.

Also, I added about ten of the best pictures from my european trip in thier full resolution and size to my deviantart account. You can get to them by clicking here. You can click on the thumbnails to get a larger view, and click on teh medium size to get the full size (bigger than the computer screen!) enjoy!