Brave New World

photo from New York Times

I just finished reading an article from the April 13 issue of the Sunday Times Magazine (I've been saving them for the crosswords) about the future applications of cell phones (or mobile phone if you're just about anywhere else in fact most phones I've owned have used the label 'mobile' when classifying the type of line for a contact) specifically their economic and social impacts in the developing world.

The developing world, both rural and in the slums of the worlds largest cities (Mumbai and Rio spring to mind), is the next market for cell phone manufacturers, seeing as how everywhere else folks already have phones (cell and otherwise).

If you're interested in technology and its impact you'll know a lot of whats covered in the article already, if not you'll probably be a bit surprised at the ways in which cell phones are changing peoples lives throughout the developing world. My favorite tidbit was the home grown money transfer program running in Uganda where you buy a pre-paid card and call the PIN to someone else to use, normally someone running a business as the village phone, who then gives that amount to who you were trying to send it to. Very cool.

So go read the article, and then check out the blog of the main guy, Jan Chipchase.