“You think we need this phone anymore?” I asked my wife.  Although I’d retired ye olde twisted copper line a few years back, going that one step further and losing the VOIP phone - well, that felt a little reckless.  But the fact remained that aside from a weekly call to my wife’s family in Germany, our use usage of that line had dwindled down to getting the occasional cold call for donations from the Police Benevolent Association of New York City (where I hadn’t lived for several years).

Live Simple.  Lean and Mean. (or our pale bourgeois version of it, at least) - to us, it seemed like a good idea at the time.   It turns out we weren’t alone: a recent US government survey claims that 17.5% (or 1 in 6) US households now depend exclusively on cellular networks for telephone service.

Nevertheless, I’ve found these major home network revisions require (ahem) particularly well documented key stakeholder buy-in, so I waited a week or two and asked Anja once again if Skype could be a workable Vonage replacement for her calls home.  Only after getting further assurance did I finally make the ‘Dear John’ call to break it off with Vonage (at one point, to spare the call center operator from having to go through his whole customer retention script with me, I think I might have actually said “it’s not you, it’s me”).

As it happened, though, both Anja and I came to rue that fateful day: my comeuppance coincided with a switch to the iPhone – or should I say to the remarkably dismal (in the NYC metro area at least) AT&T voice network that comes tethered to it like a ball and chain.  For her, it turned out she hated having to either boot up the laptop and run Skype or try to cradle a tiny cell phone on her shoulder during those leisurely Sunday morning calls home to Germany after all…

She’s one resourceful e-shopper, though, and soon came across what I think could be the Next Cool Geek Accessory – the retro cell phone handset. While she uses hers only at home for purely ergonomic reasons, I can imagine these things starting to turn up on the streets of the Williamsburg (and other ghettos of hip) in 2009, just as black horn rim glasses did 10 years ago.  For the rest of us (those of us old enough to remember), making a call with these huge ancient headsets is somehow strangely reassuring.

Yep. I like this thing - both for the sheer comfort and clunkiness of it, as well as for the juxtaposition of vintage design and current technology - there are even Bluetooth and USB versions available.

Who knows, if my AT&T voice coverage ever improves enough to make it worthwhile, I might just get a Bluetooth handset for my iPhone…

Just off a subway ride on the 6 line, from 38th street to Time Square.

While on the train and others prior, I notice again and again, people don’t seem any happier since jumping on the consumer gadget band wagon.

Although plugged into countless iPods, Kindles, and Zunes, typing into Blackberries, and watching videos on PSPs and iPhones, if New York subway riders are at all indicative of the larger mass - despite all our digital consumer innovation might - it just doesn’t seem to have made anyone genuinely more content compared to, let’s say, reading the newspaper or a hard cover book (as many might have in the past).

If that’s true, what user experience element is it that our consumer digital technology industry keeps ignoring?

Asking the experts might help.

Just back from this week’s Web 2.0 Expo in New York, Intel’s Director of User Experience, Genevieve Bell, gave a purposely simple but rather powerful talk about the art of truly matching our every day lives with the appropriate digital technology.

Amazing how different a role consumer digital innovation plays depending on where you go around the globe.

Back to the us, the New York subway, in all fairness, the news these days must add to anyone’s level of discomfort. I concur.

From political battles and hurricanes, to mortgage woes and banks collapsing, OK, so maybe there’s good reason to stay somewhat bleak and subdued while hasting from one hectic place in Manhattan to another, never quite “catching up”.

Still, isn’t it exactly right here where the US consumer electronics market is making substantial money? In large cities like New York, rich with affluent first adopters and technology aficionados looking to buy into personal devices designed to make it all easier, more bearable, dare I say it - more fun!

Looks to me, mission yet to be accomplished.

Off I go, my Blackberry in hand, trying to catch the next train out.

I’m not easily excited by gadgets-of-the-future, but this is potentially pretty cool - Intel is working on wireless recharging for mobile devices.

Imagine not having that ‘wall wart’ AC adapter/recharger for each of our laptops, cell phones, and PDAs - and imagine if a cross-platform standard was developed, such that you could buy a ‘recharging-enabled’ coffee table or desk pad that would recharge the battery of any compatible mobile device within range: in other words, just set your smart phone down on your desk (or work on your laptop) and they’re recharged! (of course the mobile device would have to announce its particular electrical requirements in terms of good old volts and amps, but that seems workable…)

Until the current smartphone boom we find ourselves in started up, the telcos and cell phone manufacturers had been struggling to find compelling reasons for you to re-up on a new phone - while better cameras, infrared data sharing, and music download partnerships all fell short, maybe 4-5 years out, *this* could the next big reason to upgrade… (that is, once we’re all bored with email, web browsing, and GPS)!