The Globe and Mail has a series of three [1 2 3] articles looking at the growing functionality and use of mobile phones. An excerpt from the third article:

The question is not what the phone can do now, but more “what will the phone become over time,” Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates told on-line technology site Engadget recently. The phone, he said, “sort of trumps everything. It trumps media players, it trumps cameras, it trumps GPS-mapping devices, digital wallets, and even entertainment.”

The fact that many people already take their phone everywhere makes it a natural candidate to become what an analyst called the “one device to rule them all.” As Vodafone Group PLC executive Guy Laurence told a telecom conference earlier this year: “There are only three things that people always carry with them: their wallet, their keys and their mobile phone.”

And technology is making it easier for the phone to become what telecom guru George Gilder calls a “teleputer” — a wireless device capable of performing all of the functions we associate with a computer. “Devices are getting cheaper, but you're also seeing bigger screens and more storage,” says British-based Gartner analyst Benjamin Wood.

The phone is increasingly becoming the “ubiquitous converged device” at the centre of our lives, says Lawrence Surtees of IDC Canada. “It's becoming a small laptop in your pocket.”

Some industry experts see such phones turning into “thin clients” or network computers that can access your data wherever it might be — stored on a server at the office or on a PC at home — a model that e-mail-centric devices such as RIM's BlackBerry and palmOne Inc.'s Treo have already made popular.

Dr. Aniruddha Malpani writes something that we all need to think deeply about:

I am an IVF specialist, but I also run a free patient education library in Bombay. This is called: HELP - the Health Education Library for People, and has now become one of the world's largest consumer health library.

This is a free service we provide, because we believe in Information Therapy and that patients need access to information, so they can get the best medical care for themselves, in partnership with their doctor. We spend a lot of money on running the library ( space rental, books, staff salaries, electricity and so on) and a question many people ask us is - Why do you do this ? What do you get out of it ? Everyone feels we must be having a vested interest, and they simply cannot figure out what it is !

I am surprised at how naive they are. There is so much pleasure in doing good and helping someone else with no vested interest ! Isn't that what life is for ? All religions teach the same thing - do good to others - so why can't we put it into practise in our own lives ?

I am financially well off, so why shouldn't I put my money to good use now in my own lifetime rather than donate it to some charity after I am dead and gone ?

And why should I wait to do good after I have retired ? I live by the philosophy, "Live Rich, Die Broke". Sure, I don't drive a Mercedes, but why do I need to ? One of my friends asked - What's your ROI ( return on investment) ? All I can say is that the emotional income I get is incomparable !

It's sometimes hard to explain to others why we run HELP, and I used to do my best in the past to do so. Now I just feel sorry for them, in that they have not experienced the pleasure which comes from giving to others with no axe to grind.

Mr Gutman has a message:

Everyone is working hard, but are they really? And can you win in business, on your own terms?

Experience says no. To win you have to submit to the lunacy of the crazy world we live in. If you won't push the pedal to the floor, you can bet your competitors will. And while you may be motivated even with cushy surroundings and shorter days, the people you hire will take it as a signal that they can relax too. No one will work harder than the boss. That's one of the unfortunate rules of all organization. So if you're on your hard-earned less-stress route to success, the people you hired are acting like cashed-out second-time entrepreneurs too! They can't avoid it, it's just human nature. Of course they'll be disappointed to find out that when you stop funding the project they'll go back to being poor schnooks, and if you didn't blow all your cash (some people do) you'll still be rich.