David Pogue: Cool new things you can do with your mobile
I’m the weekly tech critic for the New York Times. I discussed gadgets and stuff. And principally what good daddies should be doing this time of year is nestling with their children and decorating the Christmas tree. What I’m predominantly doing this year is going on cable TV and refuting these questions: “What are the tech tendencies for next year? ” And I’m like, “Didn’t we just go through this last year? ” But I’m going to pick the one that interests me most, and that is the ended wedlock of the cell phone and the Internet.You know, I found that volcano on Google Images , not realizing how much it sees me look like the make of Dianetics.( Laughter) Anyway, everything there is started a few years ago, when they started carrying your voice over the Internet rather than over a phone line, and we’ve come a long way since that. But that was interesting in itself. This is fellowships like Vonage. Basically you take an ordinary telephone, you plug it into this little box that they give you and the box pushes into your cable modem. Now, it labor just like a regular telephone. So you can pick up the phone, you discover a dial mood, but its really a fake-out. It’s a WAV file of a dial color, merely to reassure you that the world hasn’t objective. It could be anything. It could be salsa music or a comedy programme — it doesn’t matter. The little carton has your telephone number. So that’s really cool — you can take it to London or Siberia, and your next door neighbor can phone your dwelling list and your telephone will reverberate, because it’s got everything in the box.They’ve got every piece known to man in there, because lending a new boast is just software. And as a result of Voice Over IP — I dislike that call — Voice Over Internet — land-line home-phone service has gone down 30 percentage in the last three years. I mean , no self-respecting college kid has home phone service anymore. This is what college girls are more likely to have. It’s the most popular VOIP service in the world: It’s Skype. It’s a free program you download for your Mac or PC, and you become free phone calls anywhere in the world The downside is that you have to wear a headset like a geek. It’s not your telephone — it’s your computer. But nonetheless, if you’re a college girl and you have no money, believe me, this is better than trying to use your cell phone. It’s really cute encounter middle-aged beings like me, try out Skype for the first time, which is generally when their kid goes away for a semester abroad. They don’t want to pay the international rewards, so they’re like, “Timmy! Is that you? “( Laughter) It’s really cute.But I — at least it was when I did it –( Laughter) I judge where VOIP is really going to get interesting is when they start putting it on cell phone. Imagine if you had an everyday cell phone, and any time you were in a wireless hotspot — free calls anywhere in the world, never pay the cellular company a nickel.It’d be really, really cool — and more, even though the technology for this has been available for five years, incredibly, the number of standard cell phone offered by US carriers with free VOIP is zero! I can’t figure out why!( Laughter) Actually, I need to update that. There’s one now. And it’s so interesting that I belief I would tell you about it. It comes from T-Mobile. And I am not paid by T-Mobile.I’m not plugging T-Mobile. The New York Times has awfully strict policies about that. Ever since that Jayson Blair jerk ruined it for all of us.( Laughter) Basically, the above reasons you haven’t heard about this program is because it was introduced last year on June 29. Does anyone retain what else happened on June 29 last year? It was the iPhone. The iPhone came out that day. I’m like, can you imagine being the T-Mobile PR lady? You know? “Hi, we have an announcement to — WAH !!! “( Laughter) But it’s actually really, really cool. You have a choice of phones, and we’re not talking smartphones — regular telephones, including a Blackberry, that have Wi-Fi.The agreement is, any time you’re in a Wi-Fi hotspot, all your calls are free. And when you’re out of the hotspot, you’re on the regular cellular structure. You’re thinking, “Well, how often am I in a hotspot? ” The answer is, “All the time! ” Because they give you a regular wireless router that works with the phone, for your live. Which is really ingenious, because we all know that T-Mobile is the most pathetic carrier. They have coverage like the dimensions of the my thumbnail.( Laughter) But it’s a hundred million dollars to put up one of those castles. Right? They don’t have that kind of money. Instead they yield each of us a seven-dollar-and-9 5-cent carton. They’re like a stealth tower facility program. We’re place it in our homes for them! Anyway, they have Wi-Fi phones in Europe. But the thing that T-Mobile did that nobody’s done before is, when you’re on a call an you move from Wi-Fi into cellular range, the call is handed off in mid-syllable, seamlessly.I’ll show you the advanced engineerings we use at the New York Times to test this gear. This is me with a camcorder on a phone going like this.( Laughter) As I walk out of the house from my Wi-Fi hotspot into the cellular network on a label with my spouse — look at the upper left. That’s the Wi-Fi signal.( Video ): Jennifer Pogue: Hello? David Pogue: Hi babes, it’s me.JP: Oh, hi darling, how are you? DP: You’re on Wi-Fi. How does it sound? JP: Oh, it sounds pretty good. Now, I’m leaving the house. DP: I’m going for a move — do you mind? JP: No not at all. I’m having a great daylight with the minors. DP: What are you guys doing? Right there! It time changed to the cellular fortres in mid-call. I don’t know why my spouse says I never listen to her. I don’t get that.( Laughter) The bottom line is that the boundaries, because of the Internet plus cell phone, are softening. The cool thing about the T-Mobile phones is that although swapping technologies is very advanced, the billing technology has not caught up. So what I want is that you can start a call in your house in the Wi-Fi hotspot, you can get in your gondola and talk until the battery’s dead — which would be like 10 instants –( Laughter) And the bellow will continue to be free.Because they don’t, they haven’t — well , no, wait! Not so quickly. It likewise succeeds the other way. So if you start a call on your cellular structure and you come home, you deter being statement. Which is why most people with this service get into the habit of saying, “Hey, I just got home. Can I call you right back? ” Now you get onto. It’s also true that if you use one of these telephones overseas, it doesn’t know what Internet hotspot you’re in.On the Internet nobody knows you’re a pup, right? Nobody knows you’re in Pakistan. You can build free unlimited announcements residence to the US with these phones. So, exceedingly, quite interesting. This is another favorite of mine. Does anyone here have a working cell phone that’s on, with coverage, who can make a call right now without a great deal of fussing? OK. Would you call me delight right now?[ Phone number given .] And don’t you all request me at three a.m. asking me to fix your printer.( Laughter) I have two cell phone, so this going to be very odd, if it succeeds. I is well aware not to do technology demos in front of an gathering. It’s just, like, absurd. This one is going off. And — oh, I have the ringer off. Tsh! Great. Anyway, this one is also moving off. So they’re both ringing at the same time. Excuse me one second. Hello? Oh. Where are you calling from? No , no only kidding. There he is. Thank you very much for doing that. I didn’t even know it was you — I was looking at this guy.Oh enormou! Yeah. Yeah you can all stop need now!( Laughter) All claim! We’ve made the site. All liberty. Ringer off. Everyone wants in on the action.( Laughter) So this is Grand Central at work — it’s a — oh, for divinities sake!( Laughter) I have your counts now!( Laughter) You will compensate. Grand Central is this really brilliant idea where they give you a brand-new phone number, and then at that point one telephone number sounds all your phones at once. Your home phone, your work phone, your cell phone, your boat telephone( this is the EG crowd ).( Laughter) The appeal of that is you never miss a call. I know a lot of “youre like”, “Ooh, I don’t want to be reached at any hour.” But the glamour is it’s all going through the internet, so you get all of these really cool aspects — like you can say, I miss these parties to be able to call me only during these hours.And I require these people to hear this reacting, “Hi boss, I’m out building us both some fund. Leave a message.” And then your wife asks, and, “Hi honey, leave me a message.” Very, terribly customizable. Google bought it, and they’ve been working on it for a year. They’re supposed to come out with it very shortly in a public technique. By the practice, this is something that really bothers me. I don’t know if you realize this. When “youre calling” 411 on your cell phone, they accuse you two bucks. Did you know that? It’s an cruelty. I actually got a photograph of the Verizon employee right there. I’m going to tell you how to avoid that now. What you’re going to use is Google Cellular.It’s totally free — there’s not even ads. If you know how to send a text message, you can get the same information for free. I’m about to change their own lives. So here’s me make it. You send a text message to the word “Google, ” which turns out to be 46645. Leave off the last “e” for savings. Anyway, so gives say you need a drugstore near Chicago. You type “pharmacy Chicago, ” or the zip code. You punched send, and in five seconds, they will send you back the two closest pharmacies, ended with mention address and telephone number. Here it comes. And it’s already written down — so, like, if you’re driving, you don’t have to do one of these things, “Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.” It works with weather, too.You can say “Weather, ” and the name of the city you’re going to travel to. And then in five seconds, they send you back the complete weather forecast for that city. Shortly I’ll tell you why I was in Milan. Here we go. And those are just the beginning. These are all the different things that you can text to Google and they will — yeah! You’re all trying to write this down. That’s cute. I do have an email address. You can just ask me. It’s absolutely phenomenal. The only downside is that it requires you to know how to text — send a text message. Nobody over 40 known to be to do that. So I’m going to educate you something even better. This is called Google Info. They’ve just propelled this voice-activated version of the same thing. It’s discussion approval like you’ve never heard before. So gives say I’m in Monterey, and I miss what? I want to find what? Bagels. OK. Google: Say the business and the city and territory. DP: Bagels, Monterey, California.I got the Chinese line.( Laughter) Google: Bagels, Monterey, California. Top eight results: Number one, Bagel Bakery on El Dorado Street. To adopt number 1, you can press one or say “number one.” Number two: Bagel Bakery, commissary bureau. Number Two. Number Two. Two.( Laughter) Why do I listen to people in the audience? Well regardles — oh! Here we go! Google: … commissary district on McClellan Avenue, Monterey. I’ll connect you, or say “details, ” or “go back.” DP: He’s connect me! He doesn’t even tell me the phone number. He’s just connecting me directly. It’s like having a personal valet. Google: Hold on.( Laughter) DP: Hi, could I have 400 with a schmear? No , no , no — just kidding , no no.So anyway, you never even catch out the digit. It’s just so amazing. And it has incredible, incredible accuracy. This is even more amazing. Put this in your hurry phone. This you can ask by utter issues and questions. Who won the 1958 World Series? What’s the recipe for a certain cocktail? It’s absolutely amazing — and they text you back the answer.I tried this this morning just to make sure it’s still alive. “Which performers have played James Bond? ” They text me back this: “Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig.” Right! And then I was just trying to profess I was like a Valley girl. I’m like, “What’s the word that means you know, like, when the sun, the moon and the earth are, like, all in a line? ” Just to see how the recognition was. They texted me back, “It’s called a syzygy.” Which I knew, because it’s the word that won me the Ohio spelling bee in 1976. You know, there’s a lot of beings wondering, “How on earth are they going to make money doing this? ” And the answer is: look at the last line. They introduced this teeny-weeny little ad, about 10 personas long. And a good deal of beings likewise wished to know, “How does it wreak? How can it be so good? It’s as though there is a human being on the other end of the line.” Because there is one! They have 10,000 people who are getting paid 20 pennies per answer.As you can imagine, it’s college kids and old beings. That’s who can afford to do that. But it’s a human being on the line. And it’s gotten me out of so many tough importances like, “When’s the last flight out of Chicago? ” You know. It’s just absolutely amazing. Another thing that really bothers me about cell phones today — this is probably my biggest pet peeve in all of technology. When I call to leave you a content, I get 15 seconds of instruction of a third-grade teacher on Ambien!( Laughter) “To page this person … ” Page? What is this, 1975? Nobody has pagers anymore. “You may begin speaking at the style. When you have finished recording, you may hang up.” No!( Laughter) And then it gets worse: when I call to retrieve my words, first of all: “You have 87 sends. To listen to your words … ” Why else am I calling?( Laughter) Of course I want to listen to the letters!( Laughter) Oh! You all have cell phones more. So last year I went to Milan, Italy, and I got to speak to an audience of cellular administrations from 200 countries around the world.And I said as a joke — as a joke, I said, “I did the math. Verizon has 70 million patrons. If you check your voicemail twice a era, that’s 100 million dollars per year. I bet you guys are doing this just to run up our airtime, aren’t you? ” No chuckle. They’re like this –( Laughter) Where is the rage, parties? Rise up!( Laughter) Sorry. I’m not acrimoniou.( Laughter) So now I’m going to tell you how to get out of that.There are these services that transcribe your voicemail into verse. And they route it either to your email or as text sends to your telephone. It is a life-changer. And by the way, they don’t ever get the words right, because it’s over the phone and all that. So they attach the audio enter at the bottom of the email so you can listen to double-check. The service is called things like Spinvox, Phonetag — this is the one I use — Callwave. A mas of people say, “How are they doing this? I don’t really require beings listening in to my calls.” The execs at these companies told me, “Well we use a proprietary B-to-B, best-of-breed, peer-to-peer soluti — ” you know.I reckon basically it’s like these people in India with headsets, you know, listening in. The ground I think that is that on the first day I tried one of these services, I got two voicemail messages. One was from a person identified Michael Stevenson, which shouldn’t be that hard to transcribe, and it was misspelled. The other was from my video producer at the Times, whose name is Vijaiy Singh, with the silent’ h ‘. Nailed that one.( Laughter) So you be the gues.( Laughter) Anyway, this busines, Callwave, promises that it’s all software — nobody is listening to your themes. And they too predict that they’re going to transcribe only the gist of your sends.( Laughter) So I reflected I’d see how that goes.This is me testing it out.( Video ): Hello, this is Michael. Hope you’re doing well. I’m fine now. Everything’s good. Hey, I was walking along wall street and the sky was blue-blooded. And your daughter contravene her leg at football practise. I’m going to have a sandwich for lunch. She’s in apartment — emergency room 53 W. OK, talk to you later — bye.( Laughter) I adoration my job.( Laughter) So a marry minutes later, this I came by email. It’s a very good transcription. But a marry minutes after that, I got the text message version. Now retain, a verse meaning is impossible to be 160 references long. So it had better be the gist of the gist, right? I’m not kidding you. The theme said, “Was walking along the street” and “sky was blue” and “emergency”!( Laughter) What the f –?( Laughter) Well I guess that was the gist.( Laughter) And lastly, I really have to talk about this one. This is my favorite of all time. It’s called Popularitydialer.com. Basically, you’re going to go on some iffy appointment, or a potentially bad meeting.So you go and you type in your phone number, and at the exact hour where you want to be called –( Laughter) And at that moment your telephone will ring. And you’re like, “I’m sorry. I’ve got to give this.” The really beautiful thing is, you know how when somebody’s sitting next to you, sometimes they can sort of hear a little bit of the caller. So they give you a alternative of what you want to hear on the other end.Here’s the girlfriend. Phone: Hey you, what’s going on? DP: I’m kinda, like, applying a talk right now. Phone: Well, that’s good. DP: What “are you doin “? Phone: I was just wondering what you were up to. DP: Right, I can’t really talk right now. This is the — I cherish this — the boss bawl. Phone: Hey, this is Mr. Johnson calling from the part. DP: Oh, hi, sir. Phone: Did you complete that thing about a month ago? That photocopier improve? DP: Oh — sorry I forgot.Phone: Yeah, well so when was the last time you used the photocopier? DP: It was like three weeks ago. Phone: Well, I don’t know if you heard, you might have heard from Lenny, but –( Laughter) I conceive the biggest change when Internet met phone was with the iPhone. Not my finest instant in New York Times journalism. It was when in the fall of 2006, I explained why Apple would never do a cell phone.( Laughter) I looked like a geek. However, my logic was good, because — I don’t know if you realize this, but — until the iPhone came along, the carriers — Verizon, AT& T, Cingular — deemed veto power over every aspect of every design of every phone.I know the people who worked on the Treo. They ran around to these carriers and said, “Look at these cool features.” And Verizon is like, “Hmm , no. I don’t think so.” It was not very conducive to innovation. What I didn’t anticipate was that Steve Jobs extended around and said, “Tell you what — I’ll give you a five-year exclusive if you’ll let me design this phone in peace — and you won’t even see it till it’s done.” Actually, even so, he was turned down by Verizon and others. Finally Cingular said OK. I’m going to talk about the consequences of the iPhone. Please don’t corner me at the party tonight and extend, “What are you? An Apple fan boy? ” – you know. I’m not. You can see what I said about it. It’s a flawed classic. It’s got bad things and good things. Tells all acknowledge that right now. But it did modify a few things.The first thing it changed was that all those carriers read that they sold 10 million of these things in a year. And they said, “Oh my gosh, perhaps we’ve been doing it wrong. Maybe we should cause phone decorators blueprint the phones.”( Applause) Another thing was that it tell 10 million people, for the first time, knowledge being online all the time. Not abusing these 60 -dollar-a-month cellular placards for their laptops. I don’t understand why we’re not there hitherto. When I’m an old man, I’m going to tell my grandchildren, “When I was your age, if I wanted to check my email, I used to drive around town looking for a coffee shop.I did! “( Laughter) “We had wireless base stations that could be used to broadcast — yay, about 150 hoofs across.”( Laughter) It’s absurd. We have power outlets in every room of every build. We have ranging liquid. What’s the problem? Anyway — but this coachs parties what it’s like. You have to go to YouTube and type in “iPhone Shuffle.” This guy make a tease video of one that’s one inch square, like the real iPod Shuffle. It’s like, “It only has one button. Touch it and it phones a number at random.”( Laughter) “Who the hell is this? “( Laughter) But the other thing it did is it opened up this idea of an app store. It downloads right to the phone. And you can use the tilt sensor to steer this car squandering this game.These platforms can use all the components of the iPhone — the touching screen. This is the Etch–ASketch program — the theme of EG 2008. You know how you erase it? Of track. You shake it. Right, of course. We shake it to kill, like this. They have 10,000 of these programs. This is the translator program. They have every language in the world. You type in what you want, and it gives you the translation. This is amazing. This is Midomi. A song is operate through your leader — you sing it into the thing: do do do do do, da da da da da da, da dum … OK, you sounds, “Done” and it will find out the song and play it for you.I know. It’s insane, right? This is Pandora. Free Internet radio. Not really free Internet radio — you type in a party or a song word. It will immediately dally you that song or that ensemble. It has a thumbs-up and a thumbs-down. You say if you like this song or not. If you like it, it tries another song on you from a different clique, with the same instrumentation, vocals, theme and tempo. If you like that one, or don’t like it, you do thumbs-up and thumbs-down. Over time it accommodates the chorus so that it entirely stops playing bad vocals. It eventually simply frisks anthems you like. This is Urbanspoon. You’re in a town. It knows from GPS where you’re standing. You want to find a target to eat. You shake it. It proposes a restaurant. It gives you the price, and the orientation and ratings. Video: I’m not going all the way to Flushing. Anyway, just amazing, amazing things. Of route, its not just about the iPhone. The iPhone broke the dyke, the wall. But now it’s everybody else.So Google has done their own Android operating system that will soon be on handsets — telephones from 34 fellowships. Touch screen — unusually, really nice. Too with its own app store, where you can download platforms. This is amazing. Following the completion of all this, Verizon, the most calcified, corporate, republican carrier of all, said, “You can use any telephone you require on our network.” I love the Wired headline: Pigs Fly, Hell Freezes Over and Verizon Opens Up Its Network — No. Really. So everything is changing. We’ve enrolled a new world of invention, where the cell phone becomes your laptop, customized the method you want it. Every cell phone is unique. There is software that you can add on.Can I do one more one-minute song? Thank you.( Applause) Just to round it up — this is the new Apple Power Music Stand. It’s only three pounds, or 12 if you install Microsoft Office.( Laughter) Sorry, that was mean. This is a song I did for the New York Times website as a music video. Girl and gentlemen, for seven joyful hours it was the number one video on YouTube.( To the motif of “My Way”) And now the end is near. I’m sick to death of this old cell phone. Bad seemed, the signal’s weak, the software stinks. A made-in-Hell phone. I’ve heard there’s something new — a million times more rad than my phone. I extremely will join the worship. I crave an iPhone. Concerns — I have a few. It’s got some mistakes; we may exactly face it. No keys , no storage poster, the battery’s sealed — you can’t replace it. But God, this thing is sweet.A multitouch, iPod, Wi-Fi phone. You had me from, “Hello.” I crave an iPhone. I want to touch its treasured screen. I want to wipe the smudges empty. I demand your best friend to look and salivate. I “re saying”, “Look — now I’m cool” I stood in line and I’ll get mine. I crave an iPhone. For what is a man? What has he got? If not iPhone, then he’s got squat.It’s all the things a phone should be. Who charges if it’s AT& T? I made a stand, paid half a magnificent! And I got an iPhone!( Applause) Thank you. Thank you very much.( Applause ).
