Lunch over IP: LiftAsia08: Tending towards beauty

Link: Lunch over IP: LiftAsia08: Tending towards beauty.

To see the future, look at the present. We interviewed a group of “elite nomads”, the bleeding edge of global travelling users. Here some of the findings:

* Data-roaming costs stifle demand; people downgrade to pure voice; they carry several prepaid SIM cards. Reliable Internet connection is like a shade under a palmtree for these digital nomads, it’s comfort. Coffee, wi-fi and friends is an invaluable combination for these digital nomads.

* Battery life is a constant worry for them. Battery life is the number 1 enemy of convergence: basically everything already works, except that all-in-one runs out of batteries. Power is the digital water. People go to ridiculous length to find the power. What I see more and more is digital divergence — a phone AND an iPod, separate devices — and the main reason for this is to two batteries, so that you don’t run out of juice in either (for the same reason many Blackberry users have also a cell phone: in order not to run out of battery in either calls or e-mail). My favorite mobile gizmo from Nokia from the last few years is the USB charger (Apple iPods also have one).

* Laptops are the only one that are qualified as “tools” by these leading digital nomads; the phone is a read-only device. All the nomads were carrying laptops, and many had also Blackberries and phones and other devices.

* This year is the year of bad touch screens (BG: picture of the iPhone behind the speaker). The reason why Apple is so phenomenal is because they have their own screen technology. But the natural evolution of the iPhone is a small sliding QWERTY keyboard. (BG: totally, totally agree: the iPhone will never become a business tool until the keyboard is there).

* The Internet builds a base for stronger ties when meeting physically.