Mobile devices and smart phones are status symbols. This is nowhere more apparent than in the manufacturing of a gold plated smartwatch, which shall here go nameless. You can’t take this element out of smart device culture. But to think that this is all there is to it is to deeply misunderstand the wider ramifications of these technologies. On the other side of the coin, devices like the Edge are about empowerment, potential, and positive changes.
Let’s talk about empowerment. Samsung worked really hard to make the new Galaxy S6 Edge really amazing in terms of its photography and color/resolution capabilities. Basically, it’s the best camera that has ever existed in a widely bought consumer device. Today, without training or real knowledge of photography, Samsung customers have the ability to make great photos of anything they want. This may be the banal: pictures of their morning coffee or their walk to work. But they may also be revolutionary, as the cell phone video of the attack on Freddie Gray in Baltimore has so recently shown. Cameras are everywhere, but they’re not always watching us. Now, with the Edge and similar devices, we can watch back.
In the same way, this empowering element of superior, pocket-sized technology available for the everyday consumer gives way to great change potential. These devices are inherently communicative, allowing you to create communities, events, movements, all from the comfort of wherever you happen to be standing. It may seem silly to talk about things in these terms, but these realities are happening all the time. Even as public schools suffer around the nation, learning is happening faster and better, through personalized access to specific information. No one knows how to harness it yet, but you can be sure that devices like the Edge are on the bleeding edge of the revolution, creating the future we will one day inhabit.
