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Innovation

Rupert Goodwins' Diary 30.11.2001

Friday 30/11/01I'd tell you how wonderful Trium phones are, but I don't have one. So they're probably really, really tacky.
Written by Rupert Goodwins, Contributor

Friday 30/11/01

I'd tell you how wonderful Trium phones are, but I don't have one. So they're probably really, really tacky. And that Mitsubishi? Words do not exist to describe the depth of feeling I have about the company.

But I'm not bitter. It's only a phone, after all. It's not as if it's a PDA, which will be taking over the world (leaving certain companies in their dust) shortly. Sun's got the right idea with its unpronounceable Jxta protocol, which does peer-to-peer file sharing between mobile devices.

What does this mean? Does it mean that you can scan the PDAs of your fellow travellers on a train and painlessly extract their music files? If you -- and they -- want to, yes. Will it be easier to swap business cards, bits of software or database entries? Undoubtedly. Will the PDA in your pocket be more vulnerable to interception, remote tampering and the other sins which have been visited on the PC? There's a good chance that it will.

It used to be that pocketing something was the best way to secrete it and make it your own personal property. These days, it might be the best way to share it with the world.

It's a very strange place.

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