Dual tech… Bleccchhhh!
Don’t let anybody tell you that Anthony is stubborn. (Don’t let anybody tell you that Anthony is afraid of third person, either, apparently.)
In the early 2000s I hated the new trend of dual technology. Cramming two— sometimes more— devices into one. Ugh. I loathed it.
The functionality of both devices was sacrificed just so the new megadevice could claim more features.
The worst example was the advent of the camera phone. Bigger phones. Worse pictures.
But then around late 2005 something funny happened. Not ‘funny haha’… we’ll get to ‘funny haha’ in a moment.
The cameras in the phones began to produce comparably respectable photos. The lenses in the phones began to inscribe names of ancient German dudes. For a start, maybe it WAS more practical to never leave home without a camera.
Early 2006 saw the introduction of mainstream cameraphone technology. Atlanta Ying Yang Twins-offshoot Da Muzicianz produced a track so brilliant, the world wondered how it ever survived before the marriage of cameras and phones was legal ere widely available.
Where’s my phone, I gotta get this
Tha freak of tha week and guarantee I won’t miss
Shake that ass and hit that split
Roll them hips and stop real quick
Don’t move til u hear that click
Hell yeah, that’s it ….
[Chorus]
Shake somethin’ for tha camera phone
Take a picture for tha camera phone
Shake somethin’ for tha camera phone
Take a picture for tha camera phone
Shake somethin’ for tha camera phone
Take a picture for tha camera phone
Shake somethin’ for tha camera phone
Take a picture for tha camera phone
Da Muzicianz - “Camera Phone”
The song had a large enough dose of funny to hold the masses’ attention and force the millions of radio listeners to contemplate the existential importance of dual technology:
If you’re ever in the club and the freak of the week starts doing her thang, you better not screw up and find yourself in dispossession of a cameraphone.
I remember when I first heard this song. I was driving to meet friends at a restaurant. I had just stopped in to my apartment after work and found out through my VOIP phone that everyone was meeting up. So back to the car I trudged.
The song came on the radio. I listened with wide eyes. The traffic light turned green and buried in my entrancement I missed it until the car behind honked.
I was in year three of a hiatus away from mobile accessibility. I could have avoided this unnecessary lateness in meeting my friends. But worse, all this time I was in danger of missing the chance to capture something extraordinary.
Soon thereafter I bought a cameraphone.
Camera marries phone. Man marries cameraphone.
//
The camera feature is now an afterthought, so commonplace it’s become expected.
The technology itself isn’t discussed directly— repercussions such as the “sexting” moral panic are covered by the media as if they are extrinsic of the manufacturing. (“it’s there; we love it; what can ya do?”)
Even pop hip hop acts blase with the gift we’ve been given; only interested in its utility: Soulja Boy’s recent hit “Kiss Me Thru The Phone,” although complete innuendo for long distance intimacy in digital social interaction, mentions nothing about photographs until one of the last lines when he mutters, “we takin’ pics like…”
//
I realize that the market needed the live prototypes in order to eventually demand improvements. Dual technology is something that we all needed to be pushed into before neither consumer nor producer was ready.
Here I am now, shopping for a phone that shoots in HD widescreen. But you can bet that the phone I currently use shoots pics and video in better resolution than 99 percent of other models.
And you can bet that if Anthony suddenly finds himself in front of the proverbial dimepiece shaking and popping on a bar, Anthony won’t miss.
