Personaly I dont think (or is that hope) that PDAs are dying, but is true about the convergence factor.
The amount I see students reading off thier mobiles makes me sure that reading off even todays screens isnt a real problem.
Apperently Japan has a massive industry of daily serialisations of stories sent to mobiles which I could get into
---
The Telephone Has Finally Reached Remote Areas of China/Africa
and eBooks On Cell Phones Are A Surprising Feature
Written by Michael Hart <hart@pglaf.org>
About half the people in the world had never made a phone call
when I first started keeping track of this a few years ago and
yet last week Reuters reported that even in the poorest region
of the world, Africa, over half had now made phone calls.
Time changes, and ever more quickly than we are expecting.
China has also just completed cell phone service to the remote
regions of its western provinces, thus creating the relatively
complete saturation of the country for its 1.3 billion.
Considering China, India, Indonesia and Africa, you have about
54% of the entire population of the world and increasing every
day in economic power to a huge extent.
In the past 18 months about 1 billion new cell phones have had
their introduction into service worldwide, but don't let these
figures throw you, many of them merely replaced old phones.
However, in Africa second-hand cell phones are a major market,
so don't discount their power on the other half of the divide.
In addition, recent marketing analysis of commercial eBooks in
recent times have shown that a surprising number of sales have
been for reading on cell phones rather than PDA's, laptops and
desktop computers, or their pocket equivaleents.
Portable computers and phones are now the majority in the U.S.
and many other countries to the surprise of those tied to such
old standards as the hardwired connectivity of the past.
The new generations are used to doing everything in the mobile
world they have grown up in or see no reason to tie themselves
down to the old model of waiting by the phone or sitting at an
old boring desk to use the computer.
More and more cell phones are combining Internet access to all
the other features they carry, thus starting to make PDAs into
a thing of the past, and PPCs are going to add cell features.
In 10 years you might be hard pressed to tell some cell phones
and PPCs apart. [PPC = Pocket PC]
The new generation is quite comfortable with wireless connects
to their friends and their computer work, and also with eBooks
on their cell phones, to the happy amazement of eBook sellers.
Michael Hart <hart@pglaf.org>
Linear Mode
