I stumbled upon this interesting read from the past while searching for Palm Pilot stuff (found on Giles Turnbull’s website), thought others might enjoy it. A few things really struck me:

it’s going to make a whole bunch of unknown people millionaires, eventually. Maybe a few billionaires too.

What an unfortunate understatement...

I thought, happily, flopped on the couch, Pilot in hand. This is the way the Internet was meant to be used– whenever I want, wherever I want– not tethered, stuck in some room, unable to move.

Swap emails with Tik-Tok scrolling and it’s a perfect predicition of today.

Best of all, the Pilot stripped out all the banner ads and graphics, leaving me what mattered most– the words, just the words.

I love this, still so relevant today.

From MEME 4.03...

CELLSPACE

8:30 am, mid-April, standing on the platform of Track 3, waiting for the Times Square shuttle to take me to Grand Central Station. About six hundred people are queued up, clustered in blobs along memorized spots where we know the subway doors will open. Most are just standing. Some are reading the morning papers.

I'm downloading email through a metal ventilation shaft in the ceiling. I point my wireless modem like a diving rod toward the breeze coming down from the street above. I can see people's feet criss-crossing the grate. If wind can get down here this way, I figure packets of data can too.

I spent a month toting around an eight ounce wireless modem, which strapped on to my five ounce Palm Pilot (http://www.palmpilot.com/), which serves as a hand-held date book, address book, and now Internet mail reader and Web browser.

Built by Novatel, the Minstrel modem (http://www.novatelwireless.com/minstrel.htm) sells for US $399 and was released in late March. I received a review unit, and, with little expectation, attached it to my Palm Pilot. I was suspicious of the device's claims-- that it could receive and send Internet packets at 19 kilobits per second using what's known as CDPD, or Cellular Digital Packet Data network, maintained by AT&T.

CDPD, in principle, is far better than a traditional cellular telephone system when it comes to sending digital signals. Because the networks sends information in packets, as does the Internet, a persistent link isn't needed. In other words, to use a CDPD modem you don't make a "phone call" the way one does when using a land-line telephone. A CDPD modem only communicates with the network in rapid bursts at the moments when data is either being received or sent. That means it's a lot less expensive, and lot easier to have many people using the network at once. In AT&T's case, they offer unlimited monthly CDPD use for around US $50, a price far below US $4,750 which is about what AT&T would charge to run a cellphone for 43,200 minutes a month-- the equivalent of "unlimited use" in time.

So what happens when you strap on a wireless modem to a Palm Pilot and access the Internet? You get a peek at the way many of us will experience cyberspace by 2000. Much as the Web unleashed a multi-billion dollar global industry and new cultural forms, so too will cheap, ubiquitous wireless datastreams, what I call Cellspace.

When the Times Square shuttle pulled in, I'd received sixteen email messages from all over the world. Sated in between two commuters on the bench, I paged through the messages using MultiMail Pro, a program that takes up about 79K of memory. Transferring to the Uptown 6 train (I was off to my dental hygienist, for a bi-annual teeth cleaning), I found another seat and began replying to a few messages. Getting off on 77th street, I reemerged on Lexington avenue and tapped send. A few seconds later my messages were routed onto the Net, and to their final destination.

In the waiting room, the one copy of the New York Times was being read by an elderly woman. I tried to shoulder-surf, but she sensed my parasitic intentions and demurely tilted the page out of view. Fine. I tapped on HandWeb, the Web browser on the Pilot, and entered the Times' Web site. A click later, and I was reading the paper too. At sixty cents a day, the Times adds up, and reading it for free this way felt different in way that reading the paper at my computer, sitting at my desk, never had. I was on the move, reading the paper the way papers are meant to be read-- between moments during the day, here and there, on the street, in a cafe, or wherever you are. The pilot's tiny screen felt surprisingly intimate. I held the Times close to my eyes, maybe 10 inches away, just as I do when reading a paperback book. Best of all, the Pilot stripped out all the banner ads and graphics, leaving me what mattered most-- the words, just the words.

THE NATURE OF THE BREAKTHROUGH

Technological breakthroughs don't come from "eureka" moments in the lab.

Breakthroughs come from incremental change, often in ways few can predict. Mosaic, a group-hacked piece of software coded by students at the University of Illinois in 1993 flipped the Internet from an obscure research network into the global phenomenon we have today. Lotus 1-2-3, in the early 80s, flipped the home computer from a hobbyist's toy into a tool for work, propelling millions of PC sales. The Palm Pilot, in 1996, flipped the Personal Digital Assistant market, from a clumsy obscure niche, into a mainstream platform. None of these inventions, taken on their own, were profound ruptures with the past, instead they served as catalytic engines, bringing together several currents of innovation into a new, powerful direction-- a breakthrough.

The Minstrel is no different. Taken on it's own, it's a somewhat clumsy, ungainly piece of hardware-- a little too big, a little too hard to configure. But, much as Mosaic was, it's just the first generation, and it points to the arrival
of a new system.

When I came home later that day (with extremely clean teeth), I headed for my laptop, picked up the phone, and was about to stick the plug into my computer when I thought-- why tie up the telephone when I can use the Pilot? So I logged in again, and downloaded new messages. "Look ma-- no wires!'' I thought, happily, flopped on the couch, Pilot in hand. This is the way the Internet was meant to be used-- whenever I want, wherever I want-- not tethered, stuck in some room, unable to move.

What happens when you get mobile? Well, one thing is certain, it's going to make a whole bunch of unknown people millionaires, eventually. Maybe a few billionaires too. It's also going to create new hybrid forms of media, with all the attendant creativity, exploration and excitement that comes with a new territory of the mind.


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