Ubicompmobile | Main / JoshuaDickens

I was one of the first people in my circle of friends to get a cell phone, back in 96 or 97 -- before that I had pager. I used the same phone for about 5 years -- a Nokia 6160, which featured:

4 entertaining games
Calculator, clock and calendar
Phone book stores up to 199 entries
Currency converter
Phone works like a pager*
Versatile range of accessories available
35 distinctive ring tones
Profile settings to fit your environment

For years I kept this phone barely working, replacing the case and antenna several times. When AT&T switched over from a TDMA analog network to a GSM digital one, I switched to a Siemens world phone, which actually was compatible with both the analog and digital networks (I was worried about my phone not working in areas where GSM hadn't been activated).

I lived with that phone for a little while, which is where I discovered the joys of WAP. Not the greatest internet experience in the world, but I passed the time reading news headlines and playing word-games on Yahoo's mobile portal.

At some point a few years ago I decided I wanted a phone that could do a little more for me -- keep track of appointments and contacts, and perhaps slightly better games. I didn't want a PDA -- I had a Newton Message Pad, and besides it's bulk, the thought of carrying around multiple devices didn't appeal to me.

That's when I discovered Nokia's Series60 platform, and specifically the Nokia3650, which had just become available through AT&T wireless.

I quickly fell in love with the phone-as-platform concept -- installing custom applications, having customization options beyond ringtones and wallpapers (though that was nice too). This was also my first camera phone, and actually my first digital camera, which started a new hobby for me. The possiblities with this phone were limitless it seemed -- I wowed friends with movie trailers and television shows, and used the full-featured web browser to get movie listings and to google trivia. Syncing my contacts and calendars via Bluetooth & iSync was a dream, and just having this cool powerful gadget made my day.

I've since owned two other Series60 phones -- the 6620 and currently the 6682. The 6620 was actually my favorite, it has lots of RAM for running all these mobile applications. I'm looking forward to the more text-centric Series60 phones that are coming out later this year. As Text message has become more common place here in the states (it seems like it happened overnight -- a year ago hardly any of my friends new what a Text Message was), i've been craving QWERTY, but I don't want a blackberry, palm or windows mobile. The best thing about the Series60 interface is that it works great as a phone, even if you don't tap all of the powerful features underneath.

I'm interested in leveraging some of that power as a mobile tool. Ubiquitity is nice, but so is emerging tech -- that's the ubiquitous of two years from now. While it's not huge in the states, Nokia's smartphone market far eclipses the Palm and Windows Mobile devices out there, and I think it's growing. The trick is to get people to realize that they have all this power in their hands, and to make it easy to harness it.

oh yeah, skills: lots of html and css, a handful of javascript and actionscript, and at this point dabbling in php, mysql, and a glimmer of perl. also learning java this semester, with an eye on J2ME...