Peripheral Digs

I was thinking about a recent episode of ‘The Simpsons’ (last year I think, which according to the seasons is way behind schedule in America) in which Snake* has a combination pistol and mobile phone (in the future). My initial thought was that it was similar to the television gun from a prior glimpse to the future and in related series Futurama, but then I became a little curious as to why many of the objects we keep today have been combining elements from other gadgets. It is becoming common to find cameras on phones, solitaire on MP3 players, and USB drives on pocket knives (which is more of an old-fashioned ‘Get Smart’ idea that people used to think about when combining shoes with phones).

I remember when PDAs were all the rage (Personal Digital Assistant, not Public Displays of Affection which apparently still are). Now most phones have all the functionality of that plus more. Most people will still have a normal camera on hand, but are more likely to show off their phone’s camera to impress people. I realised that while it is cool to have the singular base type items like an Ipod and professional camera, the way to attract real attention is to bundle as many purposes into the one piece of technology as possible, normally sacrificing quality for quantity and aesthetics. It is the pocket knife effect in play: if you can throw out as many tools and implements you can on your knife or multi-tool, you can get all the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ you want. There was never a better time to say “But wait! There’s more!”

*Snake being Springfield’s resident violent criminal and jailbird.