2055 The Folding Univac

2055 The Folding Univac

Put this phone in your pocket.

A $2,000 smartphone?  The only smart thing about this is that Samsung is going to get away with selling its “folding” for two grand.  And sell it, they will. The early adapters are lining up at the newly liberated payday loan companies prepared to pay vigorish that would make a loan shark blush so they can adapt early.

What else can you do with that money?

Well, for starters, you can fly first class from New York to Newark.  But you have to walk back.  And the meal is served before takeoff.  But let’s keep this about phones.  For example, you can buy 57 flip phones for $35 each and have five bucks left to put into the tip jar at Best Buy.

Oh, but a flip phone, you say, doesn’t even receive the internet. True. But it folds.  

Sure there are advantages to a phone you can turn into a mobile tablet. Let’s see… you can run three apps at a time on the screen.  You know how important that is. You can be playing solitaire while texting with your girlfriend and calling your wife.  You can balance your checkbook while finding the best route back from Newark Airport and listening to Ariana Grande’s hairdresser tell us what she’s really like.

Three apps at a time.  Who can live without that?!

But c’mon, guys … two grand for a telephone?

Also, design buffs, why limit the pocket Univac to a pedestrian oblong?  How about making new shapes. 

The Umbrella Smartphone:  Looks like an ordinary umbrella, the kind you see sold on street corners at the first drops of rain. Only, this one would unfold into a 12 screen computer.  Just don’t get it wet.

The Shoe Phone: Maxwell Smart, eat your heart out. This thing not only makes calls, it has a screen in the sole.

The Totebag Computer: Looks like a shopping bag, computes like a Cray.

The Accordion Computer: Take it out of the case and view the internet, your email and your stock portfolio while playing “Lady of Spain” or “Red River Valley” to the joy and applause of whoever’s around you at the time.

The Golf bag Computer: email on the putter. Internet on the 1-wood.

These secondary ideas would mean some items that are harder to tote around, and harder to open while seated on a moving bus, train or non-self-driving car.  

So, for now, you’ll have to do with the folding Univac.

SHRAPNEL:

--Happy 287th birthday, President Washington. Maybe that “cannot tell a lie” thing is mythical, but even if you stretched the truth now and then, today’s liar-in-chief makes that myth about you close enough to real. Swill them with bumbo, Mr. President!

-Today’s Winning Number:

1020 and climbing.  That’s the count of US-based hate groups, per figures from Bloomberg TicToc.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 1732