The future is here.

[mmaestro]

When I was still in school, in my final year (1996), a game came out that I played obsessively titled Privateer: The Darkening. It was a space opera game, in the mold of Elite, but with a plot and full motion video telling the story. One of the rather neat and futuristic items was what was referred to as a "PAD," or "Personal Access Device." This

Comments

[itchyfidget]

Excellent! It's very gratifying when you can buy a piece of the future :)

Many of my colleagues have PDAs. I've never been much tempted myself (no doubt if I had one, I'd use it, though), but I can see that they can be quite useful. Mr Itchy has one, but hasn't used it in years, perhaps because the functions he most wanted from it (alarm, the ability to make short notes/capture information about stuff) are now taken care of by his phone (the alarm on which is much louder, so he can actually hear it).

But yeah, they're increasingly very cool gadgets.

[mmaestro]

Well, B got her PDA because all of the phones that had additional functions also have cameras, and that's a big "no" in Federal Court. Also, SIM cards are rare to non-existant in the US - they program your phone directly - so when you switch phones you lose your contact list, which is another big draw. For me, the big thing off phones is just ease and versatility of use. I've got Acrobat Reader on it, I've got Word and Excel (and, if I upgrade, Powerpoint), a nice big screen and easier (once you're used to it) method of input. Every time we go on holiday, we drag B's laptop with us, and it's also going to be very nice to not have to (although for a longer stint, I think we'd want to get a keyboard for it also). [shrug] I guess the shorter answer to that is I'd just find trying to use a phone for all this stuff frustratingly limiting.

I'm also surprisingly myself with how easy the screen is to read, and pondering the purchase of an eBook or two to read on it. Certainly less cumbersome than a booklight.

[itchyfidget]

I hadn't thought about the camera-phone function, with B's job. That makes sense.

It sounds good. I mean, I wouldn't do it, because my computer is a small laptop and I have a cameraphone and an iPod, which between them take care of pretty much everything. But in your shoes, it makes perfect sense.

[itchyfidget]

Also? Your location on your info page is out of date :)

Sci-fi Tech.

[flankspeed]

Well, those slidey automatic doors from Star Trek?

We've got them now as well.

And computer voice recognition, although it's maybe a bit shit.

Oh, and videophones like in Aliens.

Uh..., that's it.