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Google Businesses The Internet Handhelds Hardware

Motorola to Add Google to Mobiles 99

Posted by CowboyNeal from the google-google-everywhere dept.
Kijori writes "Motorola has announced plans to enable users of its mobile phones to access Google's internet search engine at the touch of a single handset button, the BBC is reporting. "The US mobile phone maker said it would introduce Google's software technology to many of its new handsets. The companies said they wanted to encourage more mobile users to access the internet using their phones." While mobile-phone internet use is currently low, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is optimistic: "People are going to spend all their time on it eventually," he said."
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Motorola to Add Google to Mobiles More

Motorola to Add Google to Mobiles

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  • Does this mean all my calls will be archived? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Average_Joe_Sixpack ( 534373 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:36AM (#14416784)
    or is that already being done by the NSA?

  • okay. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:36AM (#14416788) Homepage
    The companies said they wanted to encourage more mobile users to access the internet using their phones."

    Well, they could do that by offering screens with an acceptable resolution for browsing the internet. Even the *brand new* Treo 700w only has a 240x240 screen. WTF?

    • Re:okay. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by carlislematthew ( 726846 )
      Perhaps we should have a 3" LCD with 1024x1024 resolution? At a certain point, those pixels are going to get tiny and useless. Most people don't like small fonts and difficult to read text. My mother-in-law runs a 17inch monitor at 800x600. It kills me when I see it...

      • Re:okay. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @11:47AM (#14417055)
        The VGA (640x480, or actually 480x640) screens on PocketPCs look great. They're too wide for a phone, but a 640x240 screen, held in landscape mode, would work great on a phone in combination with a scroll wheel. From my own experience browsing on various Palm and PocketPC devices, the main thing to allow normal rendering is adequate width.

        • Re:okay. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by carlislematthew ( 726846 )
          I have a Treo 650 (which I hate) and get accused of "talking on a calculator" when I use it as a phone. I'm from England originally and when I took back my Treo to the UK for the "holidays" one year, my brother laughed really hard and said "what the fuck is that?". He of course pulled out his cool, small phone.

          So we have this conflict. People want smaller, less obtrusive phones, and they want larger screens so they can do more on them! Ultimately, the maximum size of the screen is the phone itself, an

          • I'm thinking of getting a Nokia 7710, but only because it has a decent sized screen and has Flash capabilites (and me, being the showoff I am, want to brag about my stuff).

            Of the course, it might be 186g, but the thing looks like Nokia's answer to the XBox - it's a clunky, square piece of crap. The obvious solution? An earpiece. Is there a major difficulty getting one where you are?

            • Re:okay. (Score:3, Insightful)

              by carlislematthew ( 726846 )
              Earpieces are a pain (admit it) and almost as bad as putting a calculator to your ear... I've tried bluetooth headsets and they're OK, as long as you remember to charge the damn thing!

              I'm coming from a situation where I've had all the gadgets, and have got fed up of having an oversize and unreliable phone. I'm also fed up of charging all these damn gadgets all the time. I'm ditching the bluetooth headsets, ditching the huge phone/pda/unreliable-piece-o-crap and going back to as basic a phone as I can f

          • So the Internet gets richer (640 width isn't enough for most sites any more - 800 or 1024 is the norm), and phones get smaller. A new miniNet must be developed! And WAP can fuck off if it thinks it's part of that miniNet!

            Opera is doing some cool stuff with their browser, though. For instance, automagically resize the page for mobile devices, magnify/focus on specific places on the webpage. Also, the Norwegian websites (mostly news) that I have visited have been optimized for mobile browsing.
          • PDAs are dying because cellphones are trying to replace them. They shouldn't be. What would be nice is having your cellphone in your pocket, whipping out your PDA/tablet (with reasonable screen and a nicer interface) and having it get online via bluetooth to cellphone's GSM network. But you'd also need cell data plans that don't suck, so I doubt this will happen any time soon. Its really silly when all our devices are trying to become eachother instead of work with eachother. Why have a cellphone that can p
    • At least they're partnering with google instead of some cluttered "portal" like msn.com. As web pages go, google stands a better chance on low-res screens than most others.
    • Better yet, they could allow internet usage at reasonable rates.
    • I have a new 700w, and agree that screen size is a real limiting factor. Just FYI, try using Google Mobile (I'm using their XHTML version) to search for a site and then click over to that site directly from within Google Mobile. They must be doing some kind of proxy access to 3rd-party sites, because Google is using AI-based logic to drop images, reformat text, etc. for decent display of conventional websites on a tiny screen. It's not perfect, and of course it's not as visually pretty, but it certainly he

  • No they're not (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:37AM (#14416793)
    While mobile-phone internet use is currently low, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is optimistic: "People are going to spend all their time on it eventually," he said."

    Not at the current access rates they won't. I've used WAP once, and after getting my bill, I was through. Many people I know had the same experience with it.
    • Not at the current access rates they won't. I've used WAP once, and after getting my bill, I was through. Many people I know had the same experience with it.

      Sprint's got a pretty decent thing going: it's $10/month extra for unlimited wireless internet usage, and it doesn't eat into your minutes. I use it with my laptop + PDANet [junefabrics.com], which basically utilizes the treo as a wireless modem
      • Wow. What provider is that? The providers I checked were all around $40/mo. for a dribble of access, $80/mo. for unlimited. Some were even higher.

        • I, too, have this service from Sprint on my Treo 650. Some notable points:
          1. The service is now $15/mo, I believe. Perhaps you can get the $10/mo deal if you are grandfathered in or know how to haggle.
          2. Tethering your notebook to Sprint Vision is, strictly speaking, against the terms of service. However, the reality is that they don't really care as long as you are using it lightly.
          3. You don't need to purchase the PDAnet shareware anymore to tether to a Treo 650; Bluetooth "dial-up networking" profile suppo
    • $5/month, unlimited WAP day or night... and unlimited text and pix.

      Or under any normal plan just use it after 9 or weekends (Verizon FTW)

      -everphilski-
      • While it's true that Verizon offers $5/m unlimited WAP ("Mobile Web") they have no such plans for unlimited text and pix (unless you count their "IN" txt and pix offerings, though it's extremely limited if you message people on other providers)
        • True, thanks for the correction, just so happens all of my family (parents, siblings, wife...) and most of my friends are "in" so I forget that part...

          -everphilski-
      • $5/month, unlimited WAP day or night... and unlimited text and pix.

        Or under any normal plan just use it after 9 or weekends (Verizon FTW)

        Not if you have a Treo. Then it's $30/month for limited access (15? MB free, then $8/MB or so after that) or $70 or $80 for unlimited access. Plus as far as I can tell you can't even use the Treo as a modem via bluetooth (I have a 650). You may be right about unlimited access after 9 or on weekends, I haven't really wanted to risk a huge bill to find out.
        • With any Verizon plan after 9pm-7am is free nights and from 9pm Friday-7am Monday is free Weekends. WAP is charged as a "data call" which will show up on your phone bill as a phone call to a certain phone number (I forget what it is... been awhile since I've used it. Can't carry a cell phone to my current job so I don't really use a cell phone anymore:) ) Hence, any activity during the "free nights and weekends" since it is call activity is really free. At least it was a year ago when I did it, quite freque

    • Re:No they're not (Score:3, Interesting)

      by FireFury03 ( 653718 )
      Not at the current access rates they won't. I've used WAP once, and after getting my bill, I was through. Many people I know had the same experience with it.

      Exactly - using GPRS means constantly watching the amount of bandwidth I use. Orange charge me something like 3ukp per month for a whole 4MB of bandwidth, and anything over 4MB gets charged at 10ukp per megabyte, it's crazy. I want pay as you go bandwidth charged at sane rates - the whole point of GPRS is that it's an "always on" thing but I can't even
      • o2 has never charged me for GPRS use over the three years and two contracts I've had with them. Nor do they seem to be charging friends of mine on o2 either (though they only use GPRS occasionally).
    • Greed by the mobile operators really killed WAP. It was over-priced and content-poor. WAP died a deserved death.

      However Google isn't being that short-sighted. Opera now do a light-weight fully-featured web browser (HTML, not WML) that will run on a mobile phone, and the upcoming Nokia N90 has WiFi built in. This means you can sit in any WiFi hotspot, which in many areas now means any coffee/fast-food joint (or in enlightened areas municipal services covering the whole city), and browse away on your mobile.
    • I have $3/month, flat rate.

      This includes unlimitted text messaging.

  • Google Mobile from within regular sites & Bitt (Score:4, Interesting)

    by turnstyle ( 588788 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:39AM (#14416798) Homepage
    fwiw, you can also use Google Mobile from within regular pages -- you can see what I mean via my new Web-doodad, Bitty Browser [bitty.com].
  • This is a mobile [babysupermall.com].

    I hate that use of the word, "cell phone" worked just fine, IMO.

    • Re:Babies can use google too! (Score:4, Informative)

      by kid-noodle ( 669957 ) <jono@nan o s h e e p . n et> on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:51AM (#14416846) Homepage
      Mobile Phone - Cellular Phone.

      Cellular Phone is AFAIK, largely a US thing - we've called them mobile phones (because they're mobile, and they're phones), in the UK for donkey's years now.

      • Re:Babies can use google too! (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] explains why they came to be called cell phones -

        "Term used currently in the United States and Canada (and in other countries as well during the 1980s) to refer to most mobile phones. It technically applies specifically to mobile phones which use a cellular network. In developing mobile phone technology, American electrical engineers saw the main technical problem as achieving a smooth handoff from one radio antenna to the next. After they gave the name "cell" to the zone covered by each antenn
      • mobile phones (because they're mobile, and they're phones)

        Well, technically, all phones that aren't bolted down are mobile. Your number won't follow the phone line to which you hook it, but the phone itself can be moved. Hence my dislike for "mobile phone". My dislike for the shorthand "mobile" was expressed earlier: That's already something!

        Now, if the phone followed you around of it's own volition, that'd be different : )
      • Mobile, cell phone, handy, celly, whatever, my favourite one that I read recently is "mofo" (in the Salman Rushdie book "Fury"). I have this great mental picture of someone wrong-numbering a gangsta rapper "hey mofo, get off my mofo"...
    • I believe the article blurb has been written from an English POV :)
      Usage of mobile-phone is practically the norm over here, we only really hear about cellphones from American media.

    • Re:Babies can use google too! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:54AM (#14416861)
      This is a mobile. I hate that use of the word, "cell phone" worked just fine, IMO.

      This is a cell [postcardsfromprison.com]. I hate that use of the word, "mobile phone" worked just fine, IMO.

      Get off your high horse already, and realize English is a living, changing language. This isn't France for crying out loud...
    • I'd hate to see your other definition for "handy" :P
      • I'd hate to see your other definition for "handy" :P

        Huh?
        • Germans use the word "Handy" for mobile phones, which is, imho (and in the opinion of the language assistant at my school), completely daft . It was chosen for the English meaning of the word which of course disregarded the obvious fact that we call them mobiles. It's a common phenomenon in recent years (past decade or so). Germans adopt English words (mostly with their original meanings, unlike this case) which are in current use and their usage becomes mainstream. However, since the two cultures are movin
          • Germans use the word "Handy" for mobile phones

            Ah... well... I guess... they are handy... I mean, yeah... crazy krauts :P

            But using a foreign word in a deformed manner to use for something new is a classic. I don't mind when it's in another language so much because they don't know any better. Though it is sometimes quite hilarious.
    • I'm English. It's the word we use in England. When you write about them you're free to use whatever term you want, but I like mine.

  • How to make cellphone internet use take off (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:42AM (#14416808)
    It's simple, really, build bigger towers in smaller towns. My father lives 5 miles from one such town (1200 people) in Minnesota. He has no DSL, no cable, satellite works only when the dish is not covered in snow, and worst of all, even if he drove into town, he can get about two bars on an analog signal on his cellphone.

    You want a natural monopoly? Move in, build a handful of tall digital towers, and cover the farmers and the townspeople in the digital age. Charge $50 a month just for access, add in some more for usage. Sell $400 bluetooth cellphones uncrippled so that they can connect real computers to the cellphone. Sure, some farmers might distrust those new fangled intarweb thingies, but many will get it, if only to keep their kids from getting bored and running off to the city and leaving the farm behind.

  • been doing that for a while (Score:5, Informative)

    by chrismtb ( 778837 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:55AM (#14416865) Homepage
    I have been accessing google and other wap sites for a long time, including my school email, gmail, weather, mapquest, yahoo and more. With verizon, WAP / wireless web only uses minutes (free on nights/weekends), as long as you use your own proxy server (or a free one). What you pay verizon $5/month for is use of their proxy server. Note that there are exceptions to this: some of the newest phones require a data plan and wireless web may not be charged as minutes.

    I run my own proxy server [nowwap.com] on my PC and log on to that with my phone. I set up a free WAP homepage [tagtag.com], with links to a bunch of useful sites. If you set up or find a reliable proxy server, it is just a matter of doing some very basic on-phone "hacking", which usually just consists of accessing hidden menus. More information than you would ever need about phone hacking is available at Howard Forums [howardforums.com]. Mail2Web [mail2web.com] is a site that lets you check virtually any email through WAP.

    Noob note: if you are going to run your own proxy, make sure to password it, especially if you are on a network. Slashdot may not let you post if you are running a proxy.

  • Not any time soon (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dragoon412 ( 648209 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:56AM (#14416868)
    While mobile-phone internet use is currently low, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is optimistic: "People are going to spend all their time on it eventually," he said."

    Not any time soon, they aren't.

    With carriers charging obscene rates for data transfer (my plan with Cingular is $15/month extra for 5MB), charging by the kilobyte for overage, and the realistic speed you get off their gee-whiz-bang-super-ultra new networks delivering an experience similar to visiting a Flash-heavy site on a 9600 baud modem, and phones so absurdly underpowered (yet still overpriced) that they choke running a text-only browser, you'd have to be delusional to think mobile phone internet access will increase by any substantial amount in the near future.

    Case in point: about a year ago, I got the much-hyped V3 Razr from Cingular. Remember the commercials? This thing was supposed to be a home entertainment center, PDA, and PC all in one device. Obviously I was skeptical, but I liked the form factor. And it's really hard to do much multimedia work with only 5MB of memory and no flash card capability.

    Turns out, even in an area covered by what Cingular claims to be their hi-speed network, it takes me roughly a minute just to launch the browser and get my text-only home page loaded (it may have a Cingular logo on there, too, admitedly). Just the other day, I was sitting in the pharmacy, waiting on a perscription to be filled, and really wanted to know what time the Red Wings game started. It took ten fucking minutes to load a page only 3 clicks deep off my homepage and find out the start time.
     
    ...and this is on a supposedly high-end phone. Sure, if you buy one of those PDAs with a phone tacked on (i.e. the Treo), the experience is dramatically better, but the Razr is (sadly) still one of the better (best?) phones on the market, and if this is the dismal experience I'm getting now, how long until phones progress to the point that going online is tolerable and affordable for Joe User and the phone that came free with his plan? Quite a few years, I'd imagine.

    It's sad, really. The biggest barrier to the adoption of mobile phone-based internet usage are the people trying to sell you the service in the first place. And the phone manufacturers aren't helping any. Cell phone providers suck the big one - who knew? ;)

    • Re:Not any time soon (Score:2, Interesting)

      by blork101 ( 889544 )
      I think that's Schmidt's point. Eventually, when the technology has been further developed, when we get the replacement to 3G that has obsene transfer rates, when companies like Google take an active role in the development of these phones (or at least the software). Google are just laying the foundations for another avenue of revenue for themselves.

      Oh, and how long before this gets added to the Opera buying Google rumours? Remember, Opera's mobile browsing techology makes them a big target.

    • 4.99 a month unlimited WAP access. They block some ports so that you don't hook it up to your laptop and get free internet, but I constantly go to google to look stuff up (google can search regular internet and convert the pages to format for wap). I get directions, weather, news, sports, and email online. All for pretty much pennies. :)
      • Seconded...I've read a bunch of posts on this page about how expensive it is for internet on your cell phone. I have the T-Mobile WAP access for $4.99 a month. It isn't blazing fast or anything, but you can go anywhere you need. I can check mail for school or work (through OMA) or gmail. If I want to go to any site that doesn't have a WAP page, then I can go to Google and do a search, which automatically proxies the pages for me.

        It's a pretty sweet deal

        Less complaining, more looking into competitive rat

    • Re:Not any time soon (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @12:19PM (#14417176) Homepage
      Cingular is really bad about their data services.

      I recently tried downloading a game to my phone to see what it was like. Note that this wasn't the internet proper, but was over their minimalist phone network. The game preview images took nearly 30 seconds to load, and the whole process took about 20 minutes. After I bought the game for 5 dollars, I went online to check my bill and found out that the process of finding and downloading the game took an additional 6 dollars worth of bandwidth. It's like buying 100 dollars worth of groceries and getting a 150 dollar "lingering fee" when you walk out of the building. Bandwidth just isn't that expensive.

      I hear Verizon is a lot better with their data. Bandwidth is still tiny, but prices are closer to what you would expect to pay for a service like this.

      Of course, I live in an area with three free open WAP points at any given location, so the whole thing is somewhat moot. But I won't buy a network-centric phone until the cellphone companies get off of their high horses and become network providers rather than end-to-end monopolists. After all, none of them have figured out yet that I want to SSH into a machine at work, so why should I expect them to be able to take responsibility for the entire experience chain?

      It is my phone, I'll install what I want and run what I want. You can choose to provide the network connection or not. That's the way it works in the rest of the world, and man does it work better.

    • Re:Not any time soon (Score:3, Insightful)

      by macpeep ( 36699 )
      Perhaps not in the USA. But the USA isn't the only country in the world, and in particular when it comes to mobile services, it's definitely not representable of the rest of the world. In Asia and in Europe (I live in Finland) people use the Internet a lot - directly and indirectly. Directly in the obvious ways; web, email, download of games, etc. And indirectly by using various applications that access the Internet - for example online multiplayer games, news readers (like the Finnish "Kanavat" application
      • Rumor has it that flat-rate fees for unlimited traffic are coming (to FInland) in 2006 and the prices will be around 20 euros a month.

        T-Mobile has had unlimited GPRS (now EDGE) for over four years in the US for $20 a month. Sprint offers unlimited 1xRTT/EV-DO for $15 a month.

        You clearly don't understand or care to understand the US wireless market. Actually go and compare prices between the US and Europe - we consistantly pay less per minute, are never charged for calling customer care (as you sometimes are
    • The Razr is not Motorola's best phone. I think the phone manufacturer's market research must have told them that noone was using their technology. My *old* phone (purchased more than 2 years ago) has 64Mb built in.
    • Internet web use? Like everyone else says, not with the prices they're charging.

      However, items that would be obvious to have on your phone:
      1) iPod/MP3 player (why carry both if one will do?)
      2) limited PDA (they're almost there now, just add a few additional capabilities, you'll have a full address book/calendaring capability. Add voice recording on the phone itself, and you have almost everything anyone needs. I'm neglecting that 1% of the most vocal population that wants hand-writing recognition capabiliti
    • Well,

      I work for Cingular, and will say this. I cannot recall us ever advertising the V3 as an all in one, yep we we never plugged it as an entertainment center, pda, nope. I even just scanned through some of our old commercials.

      The V3 does not do edge, just regular GPRS. The V551 does edge. You should have done a little research.

      I know our network well, because I service customers every day on it. If your phone cannot connect to it(read does not have the capability) how can you complain? 40k is all you
    • Cingular's dataplan is called "MEdianet". It costs $15/mo for 10mb of data, and $20/mo for unlimited data.

      (confusingly, the "rateplan" section of their website lists a "dataplan". But that's different).

  • google stories on slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DarkClown ( 7673 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:58AM (#14416871) Homepage
    what is the record for the most google stories at the same time off the slashdot homepage?
    right now there are 3...
    wonder what the record is for any single topic having the most slash-share at a given time...

  • Ballmers new (broken) mobile (Score:5, Funny)

    by nighty5 ( 615965 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @11:03AM (#14416896)
    (Throws the mobile across the room)

    I'm gunna fuck'n kill Motorola
    Steve Ballmer

  • Like I have said many times before, it's all about google and their data mining tactics. Gmail, Google toolbar and now this. Who knows what else we are not aware of. The invasion of privacy has become ridiculous. So ridiculous that nobody really cares anymore. Take a look also at what google-watch.org has to say about google.
  • I'm really curious, does Google own Slashdot or have some serious stake in it? I can't remember a day on Slashdot where there hasn't been a post about Google. I like Google but I am tired of hearing about every time it wipes it *#$.

  • Why would I want to use Internet on mobiles? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Xugumad ( 39311 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @11:29AM (#14416992)
    "People are going to spend all their time on it eventually,"

    My experiences with Internet on mobiles so far has been that it's slow, expensive and awkward to use. If you spend a lot of time on buses or trains I suppose I can understand a desire for mobile Internet access, although using a laptop and data card would seem a much better solution anyway. The only time, ever, that I didn't have easy Internet access, and it was an issue, was a sys-admining problem that I'd have needed ssh to fix, anyway (and the idea of doing sys-admin work on a mobile screen with the standard keypad gives me nightmares).

    Anyone, why would I want this?
    • The only way I can see approaching "all the time" is if I were streaming music or news to listen on the go.

      But honestly, I don't even have a cell phone anymore. I just don't like the providers and their policies and rates.

      • I suppose this may apply more to people who are heavy mobile phone users - to me it's a useful tool for anyone that needs to contact me when they have no idea where I am (home, office, in shops), or need to contact someone and am not near a phone (it's brilliant for co-ordinating meeting up with people), which is about 20 minutes a month of usage...
    • My experiences with Internet on mobiles so far has been that it's slow, expensive and awkward to use... Anyone, why would I want this?

      One application that seems useful (to me) is Google Local for mobile [google.com]. If you've never used Google Local [google.com], it's an integration of Google Maps (with directions) and business directory. Another non-Google application is stats/rosters while watching a sporting event, since many venues now have free wi-fi.

      Besides those two, I can't think of more uses (and I'd rather do them on

  • Party like it's 1999 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grumling ( 94709 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @11:35AM (#14417009) Homepage
    Anyone have one of these keyboards? [salon.com] I know it must look like Google will be on top forever and ever, but anyone who used to use Alta Vista knows better (and anyone who knows about Alta Vista is an old man now). This phone is not going to make much of a difference in the long run.

  • Article says: "...access...search engine...(with) single button."
    Can we get a single button to access /. instead?

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @12:00PM (#14417106) Homepage
    Google has Googled the entire Googley Google. Google Google world park in Googleville has a Googleplex of Googish Googles Googling to Google your Googles. "We Google Your Google so you don't have to," said one Googliscious Googler.

    A spokesperson for MSN was Googled as saying: "Crap"

  • It's been around a while, and I've found Google SMS [google.com] to be both intuitive and useful at time. But hey, that's just me.

  • In developed Asia, the PC is dying. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hullabalucination ( 886901 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @01:03PM (#14417360) Journal
    Kids and young adults in Japan and Korea are only interested in SMS and phone-oriented Web services rather than a PC:

    http://www.ojr.org/japan/wireless/1047257047.php [ojr.org]

    In South Korea, meanwhile, the government has institutionalized the death of the personal computer in a program call the Post PC Era Initiative (formally, the "IT839 Strategy"):

    http://www.hardware-depot-online.com/xybernaut_est ablishes_korean_operations_to_benefit_from_post_pc _era_db.jspx [hardware-d...online.com]

    You can scoff and say that "well, that's fine for the Asians, but it will never catch on here." I said the same thing 20 years ago when I saw my first Japanese anime and manga stuff. "Nah...this stuff is too tied in to a completely foreign culture and lifestyle and is too out-of-context for kids in the West to relate to. Never catch on here." Now I have a 24-hour anime channel on cable--in rural Texas. Proving once again (as has been proven countless times over the past 40 years if I had been paying attention) that whatever it is that the Japanese youth are doing now, we in the U.S. will be doing in another decade.

    • In other words: In Korea, only old people [slashdot.org] use PCs.

      (Come on! Someone had to say it!)

      • I'm 50 years old and you can't pry me off a desktop for the Internet and messaging (I don't even care for laptops, I'm that much of a desktop purist). A decade ago I was living in an "interesting" ethnically mixed neighborhood in Dallas (OK, Oak Cliff for those of you who know the area) and noticed a parallel trend among African-American and Hispanic kids among my acquaintances: Mom and Dad had the PC in the family, Junior had a cell phone instead. Phones were extremely popular (to the point of being a fas

  • Bill (Score:2, Insightful)

    by michelcultivo ( 524114 )
    Wait the first bill and you will see if you need it anymore.
  • Here in Ontario, Canada unlimited cellphone internet access cost $80 CDN (approx. $69 USD), "UNLIMITED" means 25MB, roaming data plan can be up to 5 cents per KB and they wonder why few people use cellphone internet access???

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