Coming Soon, the Entire Information SuperHighway (Affordably and Easily) At Your Fingertips

"The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air."

Any geek worth his salt can feel the haunting words of Toklien's Treebeard release a shudder through their bodies the way it must've to the bodies of little Merry and Pippin as they traversed the landscape of the forest, and were enlightened about the oncoming paradigm shift in their world.

Such enlightenment flitters through the many consciousnesses of all involved much as the light of day through an eerie image mounted onto stain glass. Just like that light, the shift contains a dual nature; it's an unknown that creepy as it is educational; an anxiety that's accompanied by a certain dread. It's been dramatic and subtle but ten years ago, the internet matured as a superhighway of information. Five years ago the laptop redefined where we could connect to that superhighway. And in 2008, the new army of consumer-oriented mobile devices is fueling a third shift. Unlimited Data. Anytime. Anywhere.

When Apple, Inc.'s iPhone first came to the market last year it pleased a whole lot of people and yet it spawned resentment in just as many. For some the iPhone was the be-all and end-all of phones. It had wi-fi, a full web browser, multi-touch controls, great application support and operating system updates and the list went on and on. Those opposed sighted that in such an information transmitting device it was close to sinful that the simple function of cut-and-pasting wasn't an option. And that for the price the lack of GPS or 3G support, along with Apple's as-per-usual inability to deliver a device with a user-replaceable battery was disturbing. And so we had the consensus of those who said "wait." There were more than just these two camps though. There was something else there.

Unlike so many handsets this phone wasn't made by Nokia or LG, companies that base most of their revenue via phone sales. Nor was it manufactured by Samsung or Sony, branding giants who's products run the consumer electronics gamut, but by Apple-- a company that is is known for high-end computer devices and the volks-wagen of all media devices, the iPod. The idea that the cell phone market was open to any company with an army of designers and an exclusive contract with a service provider was another one of Treebeard's paradigm shifts.

Love it or hate it though, the device also represented something else to another segment of tech lovers-- the solid feeling that, well, it was about time. Time for a consumer driven (there have been business-aimed smart-phones for ages) device to come along and take a crack at the coveted position of the full fledged Personal Communications Device ("PCD"). PCDs aren't just made for calling someone but really, they're your online presence and informational go-to thingamabob in an emerging world where information recall is as reflexive as clipping yourself into a seatbelt or taking in a huge gulp of air before you perform a cannonball off of a springboard.

With the imminent release of th second generation iPhone, we next-level PCD techies are about to see a wallop of a paradigm shift as consumers have more than just the new, cheaper, Apple toy to play with in the smart-phone market. With Sprint & Samsung's Instinct, the HTC Touch, the cheapening of the Blackberry Curves along with the release of their 9000 model and a growing stock of newly released and up-and-coming devices from all sorts of tech companies (like ones supporting Google's Android), it's obvious that one day literally everybody(and their momma!)'s going to have, at their fingertips, a host of online functionality tools, created for the consumption, transmission, and overall integration of vast quantities of data in our daily lives. What's this mean for our society/everyday life?

Ever since picking up my Blackberry Curve (8310) in 2007 I must say that the first change I noticed in my everyday parlance was the lost of the ubiquitous "THEY." You know the "THEY." O no? Then let me re-introduce you.

THEY haven't made a nuclear powered emission-free car yet.

THEY have a new ice-cream out now made of plastic!

You see my point? The THEY-- that strange force of unknown people that gets things done to make our lives that much more luxurious or whatever-- their mystery vanished. How? Well, via the fact that any answer to nearly any question I had was now not only answerable in seconds, as would be were I hanging out in any wifi hot-spot with my laptop, but completely on the go and out of my pocket. THEY, were all given names as constant questions arose in conversation about what was possible concerning this or that, and specifically, how such random things were accomplished. The THEY went away. Suddenly it became: "Sony's found a way to make a screen/monitor as thin or thinner than a credit card" or "you can totally

Other things that the Shift will affect?

1) As the GPS software on these things gets more and more advanced, you'll be able to pass your GPS information to your friends and family as you see fit. Are you looking for the bar where you're supposed to meet your buddies? Move the blue blip that represents you on your handheld's map to the red blip that represents your party. No more wonky half-drunk directions a la "So do you see that fire hydrant painted like a dalmatian? Yah, it's just to the left of that! "

2) You walk by a convenience store on your way to meet someone and your phone beeps. You look at your handheld and it says A) that it's gonna rain in a few hours, and b) that if you don't have an umbrella already, the convenience store you just passed probably does.

3) You're in the supermarket and you pass by the pineapple display. You want one, but you don't know how to choose a ripe one. So you ask your handheld how to choose a pineapple properly pick one out and in a minute or two, you're squeezing, smelling and testing the top leaves on the lot of them until you've got the best in the barrel.

Some of us are already there. But with the widespread proliferation of consumer-based smart-phone devices, and the very reasonable data and voice plans available in some areas, it's just a matter of time before They're about to have us way more connected than most could have ever imagined.