Decade in review: What the smartphone has wrought

It'll be interesting to see what the next 10 years will bring.

It really is amazing how much our world has changed due to the smartphone, and how each country also adapted to the technology.

English is not my first language so this was the first time that I saw this word "wrought", meaning the same as labored or forged.

But anyway yeah, I read this article and I am posting this comment using my smartphone.

I just can't leave home without it and like many others I depend on it in my daily life.

As much as Japan likes to brag about the use of technology they are still far behind many countries in the integration of smart phones into every day life. They are very slow to pick up on banking and payment options. My Australian driver’s licensee is on my phone. Smart phones are mostly just portable game machines in Japan.

Where hath the phone box gone

For the privacy-minded, though, it's a disaster: Phone companies and app makers routinely record the movements of subscribers and sell that data to advertisers, a $20 billion-a-year business. The data is "anonymized," but as numerous studies and a recent New York Times investigation have revealed it is often a simple matter to identify who is behind the dot on the map.

I can guarantee none of those dots on the map are me.

Where hath the phone box gone

There are still a few here and there. I saw a guy using one just in the past week or so!

English is not my first language so this was the first time that I saw this word "wrought", meaning the same as labored or forged.

@Rubens - the use of this old-fashioned word is also a very obscure reference to the first thing ever transmitted on the device that is the great-grandfather of our smartphones, the telegraph: "What hath God wrought?", the Bible quote sent by Samuel Morse in his demonstration back in 1844.

Turning people into dependent robotic fools step by step.

My Australian driver’s licensee is on my phone.

So that means that any cop pulling you over and asking for your license has access to other private info on your phone as well? You trust the police to that degree? When everything like license, contacts, banking and so on is on your phone isn't that like putting all your eggs in one basket?

What has the dumbphone wrought? It hath wrought us a pestilence of uncommunicative zombies...

I love my phone and the entertainment it provides.

lostrune2Dec. 26 07:44 pm JSTWhere hath the phone box gone

Bell Canada still has them. I've seen them in Quebec Province during a vacation this July.

3RENSHODec. 27 02:41 pm JSTWhat has the dumbphone wrought? It hath wrought us a pestilence of uncommunicative zombies...

Dum-dums talking to their 'life gurus', and zombies fixated on games like that one episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION.