By the end of this year 73% of the earth’s population will have have a mobile phone, so they say. 5 billion people. Just for perspective: when I lived in Nepal, a family I knew lived on just a few dollars a day, yet they owned a mobile phone.
Why does this matter? Mobiles are cheap, durable, portable, network-connected data terminals, and everyone—for all practical definitions of everyone—has one. That’s 5 billion portable printing presses, 5 billion broadcasting stations, 5 billion places to access knowledge.
Unlike OLPC, mobiles have been enthusiastically adopted by rich and poor alike, by way of ordinary market forces. In other words, this is a sustainable for-profit phenomenon, not a resource-limited charity. How’s that for appropriate technology?
One billion of these little data terminals already have access to the most comprehensive network of knowledge ever created: the internet. You thought the Internet was big now? Just wait as the rest of the world—all those who have not had access to computers—joins the fray.
Mobiles, not computers will be the major platform of our lifetime.
Tip of the hat to Gruber for the link.