When you just look back

I’m not such a telephone fan. I think I was one of the last one who got a mobile phone among my undergraduate fellows, and I never actually had a mobile phone when studying in Germany. Yes, I do have my iPhone currently, but 99% of its use is as an Internet terminal ; in fact, I even sometimes got surprised that you can make a call using iPhone (simply because I very seldom use it as a phone).

As knowledge, I knew that the latest (as of August 2010) version of Skype iPhone App. supports VoIP feature over 3G connection. I thought of Okinawa (where I was born in Japan) and my family out of blue while working in the office, so I decided to make a call to Japan shortly after my work. I took my iPhone and used the Skype App.. The rest was the same as normal Skype software on your computer.

But its impact as experience was enormous. You can now use your mobile phone, use VoIP, and make a World-wide calls whenever you want! Well, you probably still have to consider the local time of the other end..

The World is getting flatter. I agree (one prove is that I’m reading Japanese news almost everyday via RSS feeds, which was not an easy thing to imagine 10 years ago). Skype once said they’d have this VoIP feature over 3G only for limited period at first. Soon they announced this would be a permanent feature. I don’t think the trend would be reverted in near future.

It’s probably not the cost anymore you’d have to think, when making an international call (which was my headache seed when I was in the high school / early undergraduate). It’s rather other issues, such as the local time of the your company.

In the future, our World would be even flatter than how it already is now. But the shape of Earth should stay in global for relatively long time.