Mobility, you are an interesting creature!

I started chasing Mobility more than 30 years ago. What is Mobility? It is the flexibility of being able to work anywhere. I remember the days of tethered cell phones (do you?). It took a special cable and software. You connected your phone to your PC. It was USB, and then a connection to the phone. The software created the link and you clicked. The speeds were prolonged, but in the world of dialup internet, sometimes that was good enough. We didn’t care back then; we were mostly exchanging emails. Of course, there was always the joker back in the day that included the two meg attachment with their email or their meeting invite. Waiting for that to download was painful.

Mobility is a lot more interesting now. You can print, fax, scan, and more anywhere. You can watch movies, listen to the radio all through the internet on your cell phone. As I said, Mobility has changed a lot. What is coming or what is here now, but improving every day is so much more. You can sit outside and charge your devices (solar backpacks). You can connect your phone to a projector and suddenly have a vast phone screen in front of you. Or you can watch Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Video or Apple TV. Once upon a time, the days of the Pocket PC phone, we carried lots of batteries with us. The average battery lasted five or so hours of use. Then you had to shut the phone off.

Remove the back, put in a fresh battery, and restart the phone. Not an easy process. Today you can carry a power bank and recharge your phone over and over. But mobility is evolving. Once upon a time, I had a printer, a scanner, and they were in my checked luggage. That luggage got the dreaded TSA note (your bag was opened to verify the contents were not dangerous) because of the wires. Back then, a 100 dollar printer was a lot cheaper than the 2 dollars per page many hotels changed for printing. But now, people don’t print as much, so the modern traveler doesn’t carry that printer with them. Now people don’t even need scanners; you take a picture with your phone.

The phone is mobility now!

This work is Copyright DocAndersen. Any resemblance to people real or fictional in this piece is accidental (unless explicitly mentioned by name.)