If They Make It, People Will Buy It

Cell phones on the market today conventionally have about 100 MB of flash memory, which is adequate for the more mundane tasks of storing e-mails and most frequently dialed phone numbers. Now you might think this is all the memory you would ever need. Well, think again.

On Sept. 7, Samsung Electronics said it made history by introducing the world's first mobile phone equipped with a hard-disk drive. Obviously, this is no ordinary hard drive in the new SPH-V5400 Cell Phone. Notwithstanding its small physical size of 1• diagonal, this hard drive is a decent 1.5 GB. When compared to hard drives found in most home computers, typically 60 or 120 GB, it doesn t seem very large, but it is quite respectable for a portable communications device.

The phone initially is targeted for Korean consumers; the company has not said when it will be released to the American market. Of course, it sports a high-resolution 2.2• liquid crystal display and a megapixel digital camera. Other noteworthy functions include an MP3 player and
e-book software. Possibly just for homeland use, the phone has a Korean-English and English-Korean dictionary. This capability, I suspect, would have a wide appeal to the younger users.

With 1.5 GB of memory now and heading higher in the near future, the cell phone is poised to obviate the necessity of carrying multiple devices such as music players and PDAs. All of your communications video and film clips, music, games, and personal and business contacts will be centrally located and accessible in one, small pocket-size device. Just think how less cluttered your life will be. Although a bit pricey, the SPH-V5400 can hold about 400 songs or a little more than 30 CDs of music.

As only an infrequent user of the cell phone, I find carrying around a pocket computer a bit much. I may be one of only a handful of users who never played a game, never accessed the Internet, and never sent text messages on a cell phone. For me, all of this functionality definitely is overkill. But, I m sure it will be welcomed by many who need to be connected all the time and have copious data and entertainment at their beck and call.

On a completely different topic, a recent press release from eSkye Solutions• of Indianapolis, IN, piqued my interest because it showed how the use of specialized software has completely changed the way companies conduct their businesses. ESkye just announced their latest software offering, Blend Vineyard Management 1.0, billed as a complete solution for tracking all vineyard activities. It allows a vineyard manager or winemaker to track vineyard functions from planting to harvest.

According to the release, Blend Vineyard Management will provide a wealth of data on diverse issues such as soil and rootstock information, vine spacing and orientation, climate, and harvesting criteria. Most importantly, variations in the vineyard can be tracked so any corrections can be made in following years. It seems as though software such as this eventually will put the  little old winemaker• out of a job.