In the early 1980’s the American essayist /humorist Andrei Codrescu wrote an essay in which he told of a nightmare in which his telephone merged with his alarm clock, which merged with his nightstand radio.He explained that he was living in fear that this new monster would walk across his bedroom and merge with his television.While not quite exactly how it happened, we must all be aware that as of this moment that merger is complete and with it many other of our favorite personal appliances have also merged.If you don’t believe me, just walk into a store that sells the new iPhone and you will be looking at that device.One of the most serious issues that we now face is; what would any of us do if our cellular phone went lost.My cellphone is not as fancy as some which I have seen, but it still includes my appointment book, all of the phone numbers I might need for business or personal use, an alarm clock which I use occasionally, the only watch I carry these days, two email accounts, two IM accounts, a note pad, a voice recorder, passwords for programs which I run at work and at home, and I probably forgot at least one device.Yes, that’s it, a device on which I can play games to while away the hours in doctors’ waiting rooms or in other places where I am forced to stand around and wait for whatever.I didn’t mention above that my phone is also an Internet Appliance. I can surf the Internet from anywhere I can make a phone call. I have used this feature several times, and I find it quite useful to be able to browse various sites to help me in my various activities throughout the day.I don’t have a still or video camera on my cellphone, but my last phone had one and I used to use it a lot. I have a Bluetooth headset so I can look like the rest of the idiots who walk around the streets of cities around the world talking, it seems, to themselves.The major downside of this convergence of technologies and appliances is that as we concentrate all of our most valuable data into a single device which itself is growing smaller every day, we increase the value and the vulnerability of these devices.All of the other issues, of real or imagined health risks are in my humble opinion not worthy of consideration, as we are constantly making these devices smaller and of lower power, thereby decreasing our own personal exposure to the supposed radiation hazards involved in carrying these devices close to our bodies.Surely, if we haven’t been killed by the ambient electromagnetic radiation that is passing through our bodies from television and radio broadcasts, without counting police and military radar which are often directed at us, we probably are not too endangered by the low levels of radiation that these devices emit.I expect that cellphone technology will for the foreseeable future continue to evolve. Our cellphones will evolve into complete “Personal Information Devices,” and we will continue to worry about health hazards and where we left our brand new “PID” with everything including our complete DNA profile, there for all to see.
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