Where is my mind/smartphone?

Minnov8’s Steve Borsch buried the lead nicely in his article on the forthcoming iPhone 3GS – let’s skip on down to the last four paragraphs of his story,  “Smartphones — computers in your pocket — extend your mind and your reach”:

“I’ve been in conversations with educators about technology and social media — and about the current paradigm of cramming kids’ brains with facts — and my asking why we need to teach rote facts about the countries that surround, say, the Baltic Sea when it can be instantly looked up? Are there ways to focus on how to search, ways to seek and verify authentic material, and move toward an educational model that would assume an always-on, always-connected student population?

In our working world, enlightened companies are realizing that providing a solid and good experience to employees with access to information and work processes (and email, of course) allows the employee to access and deal with a task, communication or even an idea when they have a moment or when inspiration strikes, rather than hope that all that can be stored up and dealt with when they’re in the office.

Tapping into the streams of consciousness of people one follows on Twitter, reading blog posts and staying abreast of news and other information mean that all of us are more aware of the meaningful inputs of others in whom we find value.

Then there is just the simple utility of having movie showtimes, a dictionary, time zones, airfare lookups, stock tickers, and even games. This means that smartphones extend our minds, so that we’re no longer tethered to a desk for computer and Internet use in the same way that the mobile phone for voice made us free from a phone line.”

Read Borsch’s entire Minnov8 article reposted on MinnPost.