The (Leif) Ericsson of 3G
His name is Ronny Bergqvist and he has a message. Answering only to the ancient gods of Viking lore-and of course his bosses at Ericsson-Bergqvist is thundering across Europe and unleashing the mind-dizzying fury of 3G technology on the masses. And, more importantly, he's clearing up the popular misconception that Ericsson has completely merged with the Japanese electronics giant Sony. (Because it hasn't.)
"This is not a replica," declared Bergqvist as he pulled out Ericsson's first ever telephone to a small audience of journalists at the Ericsson building in Warsaw last week. The phone, which Lars Magnus Ericsson spent two years creating back in 1876, and which resembles a wooden trumpet, is attached to a piece of rope with a whistle set into the earpiece that had to blown by the person making the call in order to contact the person on the other end.
The journalists were next shown Ericsson's first mobile phone, circa 1980, which has the size and look of a household vacuum cleaner. Mr. Bergqvist proceeded to strut about the room to humorously portray the status significance of sporting such a device back in the day.
To showcase the extreme contrast between then and now, Bergqvist cut straight to the cutting edge-whipping out two Ericsson 3G phones. These fold-out handsets are basically part camera, part phone, part internet-hooked computer. Holding his handset at arm's length, he flicked on the camera and passed the second, receiving phone around to showcase the video-conferencing function. His voice and lips appeared at the other end, both in sync but both with a 1-second delay, which, as he pointed out, isn't noticeable unless you're in the same room-which under ordinary circumstances would be a pointless activity anyway.
When it came to the question and answer session at the end of the demonstrations, one journalist stepped forward to ask a question on many minds: "Do people really need to use mobile video-conferencing?"
"Well, no," he admitted, although citing that video-conferencing has its best use in simply showing something to the person you're calling (like the view from your hotel room, for example). When pressed, Mr. Bergqvist cited mobile Internet access as being the main advantage of 3G technology. After all, this allows you to check your emails and surf the web while you're trapped in a forest somewhere that just so happens to have 3G coverage, for instance.
A definite highlight of the demo was Ericsson's Bluetooth pen technology, which allows users to draw pictures or take notes with a special pen that sends the digital scribbles to a computer, or a phone, or as an email to a friend. Bergqvist showed a colorful picture of a tree that he'd drawn, complete with greens, blues, yellows and reds achieved by pressing the pen on electronic color buttons on the special electronic notepad.
The company is called Ericsson, by the way, and not Sony Ericsson. The reps took great pains to explain that Ericsson's partnership with Sony only occurs with a handful of products, which means these handsets are pure Viking. And just like Leif Eriksson before them, this Ericsson wouldn't mind getting a little credit for discovering a new world.
"This is not a replica," declared Bergqvist as he pulled out Ericsson's first ever telephone to a small audience of journalists at the Ericsson building in Warsaw last week. The phone, which Lars Magnus Ericsson spent two years creating back in 1876, and which resembles a wooden trumpet, is attached to a piece of rope with a whistle set into the earpiece that had to blown by the person making the call in order to contact the person on the other end.
The journalists were next shown Ericsson's first mobile phone, circa 1980, which has the size and look of a household vacuum cleaner. Mr. Bergqvist proceeded to strut about the room to humorously portray the status significance of sporting such a device back in the day.
To showcase the extreme contrast between then and now, Bergqvist cut straight to the cutting edge-whipping out two Ericsson 3G phones. These fold-out handsets are basically part camera, part phone, part internet-hooked computer. Holding his handset at arm's length, he flicked on the camera and passed the second, receiving phone around to showcase the video-conferencing function. His voice and lips appeared at the other end, both in sync but both with a 1-second delay, which, as he pointed out, isn't noticeable unless you're in the same room-which under ordinary circumstances would be a pointless activity anyway.
When it came to the question and answer session at the end of the demonstrations, one journalist stepped forward to ask a question on many minds: "Do people really need to use mobile video-conferencing?"
"Well, no," he admitted, although citing that video-conferencing has its best use in simply showing something to the person you're calling (like the view from your hotel room, for example). When pressed, Mr. Bergqvist cited mobile Internet access as being the main advantage of 3G technology. After all, this allows you to check your emails and surf the web while you're trapped in a forest somewhere that just so happens to have 3G coverage, for instance.
A definite highlight of the demo was Ericsson's Bluetooth pen technology, which allows users to draw pictures or take notes with a special pen that sends the digital scribbles to a computer, or a phone, or as an email to a friend. Bergqvist showed a colorful picture of a tree that he'd drawn, complete with greens, blues, yellows and reds achieved by pressing the pen on electronic color buttons on the special electronic notepad.
The company is called Ericsson, by the way, and not Sony Ericsson. The reps took great pains to explain that Ericsson's partnership with Sony only occurs with a handful of products, which means these handsets are pure Viking. And just like Leif Eriksson before them, this Ericsson wouldn't mind getting a little credit for discovering a new world.
