Video: Jan Chipchase: Our cellphones, ourselves

Jan is a researcher for Nokia (NYSE: NOK). He roams the streets and back alleys of every country on the planet and then feeds that data back to Nokia so they can figure out how to make better devices in the future. He blogs here. He recently gave a talk at TED, 16 minutes long, where he talks about what our phone really means to us and how the future of identity is already being embraced by people in Africa and India. Their identity is their mobile phone number, not an email address. Their socioeconomic situation caused them to innovate on their terms. He doesn’t go in depth about how restriction breeds innovation, but I think it is absolutely critical to look inward on our society and see how our communications pattern evolve.

You wonder why people prefer smaller and smaller bits of information? Do you think it is about a busy day or have you ever stopped to think about the fact that most teenagers and other young people today communicate via SMS, a technology that limits the way you can express yourself to only 160 characters.

I can’t wait for the day that technology like the Nokia N95 and N81 in my pockets now will be in the sub 30 Euro price point. That is when we will see large changes occurring.