Hand
Held Gadget
A few decades ago mobile telephones were the stuff of science fiction, like the communicators used in Star Trek, but the are more subscriptions to mobile phone services than there are people in the World. Mobile phones are globally ubiquitous.
The
mobile phone pictured left was used for 3 different functions; as a
telephone, as a pocket watch and as an alarm clock. So effectively it
replaced the items on the right.
Today this mobile is used as a torch, telephone, pocket watch (altough it doesn't have an always-on-diplay), alarm clock, music player (mostly podcasts), sat' nav, camera, radio, notebook, address book, calendar and calculator.
Smartphones have combined the functions of a PDA and a mobile phone. The vision of this video , a portable device that can also be used as a desktop computer, was being followed by Windows 10 Continuum and is being followed by Samsung DeX which could, possibly, be seen as the future of personal computing.
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A mobile is obviously very useful. It has many functions, those functions are available whenever its to hand (for some functions a 'signal' is needed too) and the burdens are fairly low - the purchase cost, keeping it charged and the cost of the monthly bill.
Usefulness = (Functionality x Availability) – Burden