Remember back in the late 1990s when the 2-way pagers like the Motorola clamshell 2-way pager was all the rage? You used to see the alpha geeks with their 2-way pagers clipped to their belt buckles (usually in addition to a clunky analog cell phone they carried around with them).

See:

Obsolete Motorola 2-way pager

Now, everyone has SMS text-messaging on their cell phones and geeks all around the world have thrown away their text-only 2-way pagers, since cell phones can now do both voice calling and text messaging.

So, what other devices will cell phones suck up next? That large sucking sound you hear isn't what Ross Perot was referring to. The next generation Smartphones are sucking up functionality and other devices to make your pocket load lighter--for instance, next up: the iPod and then GameBoy. The dual-screen GameBoy and Sony PSP will give a go to try to keep the handheld game console market going. But, just like that Motorola clamshell 2-way pager, their days are numbered with Java on the high-end Smartphones.

J2ME technology will concentrate on high-end gaming (such as 3-D graphics gaming) and multi-media apps on the next gen cell phones. When that starts to catch on, stay out of the way of all those extra devices that people will begin throwing out. Six or seven years from now, iPods will go for $9 on eBay.

Hinkmond