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Video: Jan Chipchase: Our cellphones, ourselves

Categories: Nokia
By: , IntoMobile
Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 4:10 PM

Jan is a researcher for Nokia. 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.

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.