Kirk blAug

For about four months I have been without a device that manufacturers market and consumers know as a phone. I sold my iPhone 4S after getting a Nexus 7 (2013) with a cellular modem in it. I had long realized that since telephony works over the Internet through various VoIP services, I was grossly overpaying my cellular provider for voice services. Especially considering my lack of frequent usage of that feature. I had wanted to stop doing this. However, I believe that the cellular providers had also realized that VoIP threatens part of their business and so they had been reluctant to sell data without voice for a long time. I was interested in the iPod Touch or an Android equivalent with a cellular modem, but that device never came to market. That is, until cellular ready tablets started to hit the market. The only problem there was that the device was too big for me to feel comfortable using as a phone. Eventually tablets got smaller and phones got bigger. The Nexus 7 and the iPad

This does not sound like the most responsible thing to do at the special moment when a baby is born, but then again, who has a clear head at that moment: We’ve heard the stories of those early-bird babies who just couldn’t wait—making their appearance in the car or on the side of the road on the way to the hospital—but it’s rare that the unexpected moment is caught on film. Luckily, thanks to his cell phone camera, newly reigned father, Zachary Russell, managed to capture the birth—and avoid any accidents!—while he was driving to the birthing center. I am glad that nobody got hurt and everything turned out okay, but I do feel a little worried for the commuters that were put in danger here. Apparently the video in question was very popular on YouTube. This is not surprising.

When my generation hears the word "phone" we tend to think of something that derived from the telephone. That is, an electronic device that is used to transmit audio conversations between two or more parties. Some from my generation may have extended the definition to include the functions of a smartphone but still tend to think of it as primarily an audio transmission device. My son's generation will not think of an audio device. For example, when my son plays with something that he imagines is a phone, he uses it to do a variety of things. He uses it for audio transmission, but he also, in his imagination, uses it for playing games, watching videos, taking pictures, and more. He might as well be pretending that it is an iPod Touch. He certainly does not need to have a phone to provide all of the functions on the device that he is calling a phone. It has been years since the primary function on my mobile device has been the phone. Before I had a smartphone, I used the ce