Marshall Brain's Blog

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Here is the new idea - cell phones as a media transport device:

Will Your Music Hub Be a Phone?

From the article:

The company plans to launch a service, dubbed iRadio, that allows the new phones to download songs and radio programming from an Internet- connected computer each day, then beam them to car stereos or home entertainment centers.

This notion of the cell phone becoming the center of each person's universe is interesting. Think about all the things that a phone can do either now or in the near future:

• A phone, obviously
• A PDA
• An internet browser
• An email handler
• An MP3 Player
• A music hub, as described above
• A movie player
• A video game console
• A Television (see also Vcast)
• A radio
• A GPS receiver
• A digital camera
• A digital video camera
• A wallet (This article describes a system in Japan, where it is common to pay vending machines with your phone).

The question is, how long until someone produces the ultimate fusion device that actually does all this stuff? And will it be available in both a small (like a normal phone/PDA as is common today - for people who want a pocket device) and larger (like a tablet PC - for people who want to be browsing and emailing a lot) formats. For me, something the size of the OQO or the PSP with all of this stuff fused into one device would be fantastic.