Camcorderphone Killed the Payphone Star

Anyone who was around in 1981 when MTV aired their first video ("Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles; second video info here) will know that there is one thing that you can't stop...technology. Let me rephrase that: technology that happens to make sense to consumers who are bombarded by advertising and promotion that tells/commands them that this new, new thing is the thing for them. (The Guardian has this article on why Beta sucks and VHS rules.)

Korea (of course...how many times have I said this?) takes this to a whole new level. Remember way back when I extolled the virtues of my new camphone? Then I let you in on the super-duper new phones that are coming out? Well, here's the next logical iteration: camcorder phones! Yes, and I don't mean 30 seconds of recording time, either. They're talking ONE HOUR! Pretty soon they'll have all the bells and whistles of them fist-sized camcorders...unreal.

That's not the only thing phones can do here, though. Koreans can (thanks, I believe, in part due to their use of Qualcomm's CDMA-2000 standard that is far more advanced than the 'other' licenses) control the temperature and appliances in their homes (like a/c, heating, ovens/ranges, washer/dryers...as if you can't wait to get home to do the laundry) and transfer money to people (without even knowing their bank account number). They also have some pretty cool MP3 functions, and some of the phones have dual 1cm diameter speakers on them so you can really pump up the volume.

Of course, in the land of falling prices (no, Wal-Mart isn't big here, but almost every product has intense competition which leads to price-gouging and many unprofitable firms) cellphone charges are falling at a pretty alarming rate. Well, alarming to the cellphone firms more than to users...they are making the usual predictions that lowering fees will lead to less investment in the cell/grid, global warming and an attack by North Korea (or some such calamitous event). This is all fine by me. I use my phone A LOT. All of my long distance calls are from it (thanks to 90%-off discount services that I programmed in) as well as textmessaging and emails. In the 2 months since I got this thing I've sent/received over 2,800 text messages (about 50 a day), 200 emails/photos and about an hour a day of Go-Stop (Korean cardgame).

So where does that leave poor ol' payphones? You know, those clunky things that can only send voice transmissions (no photos) and you have to use coins or some card to get them to work and they cost an arm-and-a-leg if you want to call long distance. I guess they're just another casualty, but they sure come in handy when your battery dies after all that talking/texting/emailing/gameplay.