Transcripts

Commentary: Dialing Up Ways To Make Smart Phones Smarter

SUSIE GHARIB: Tonight`s commentator says there`s smart and then there`s not so smart. Here`s Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of the editorial page of the "Wall Street Journal."

DANIEL HENNINGER, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": As nearly everyone has heard by now, Blackberry, the ubiquitous wireless email device, is under threat of a judge shutting down the service in a patent dispute. As a fully dependent Blackberry user, I`m of two minds about this, actually many minds and that`s the point. We are awash today in detail and complexity. A phone used to be just a phone, a way for two people to talk. Now, like the Blackberry, it`s become what is called a smart phone. Smart phones not only permit talk, they can push a hundred emails at you each day. You can take photographs with them or download photographs to them of your children, which is nice. You can also download movies to your phone, TV shows or all the songs the Beatles ever recorded. Hewlett Packard is coming out with a smart phone whose name is complex: the HP ipaq hw6900 mobile messenger. It`s got global positioning capability in case you get lost. I`ll bet there will soon be a smart phone to help people who are emotionally or spiritually lost, downloads from heaven. There`s only one force that can slow all this down: lawsuits. Like Blackberry, Microsoft`s wireless email is being sued for patent infringement. Well, if I have to choose between smart phones and smart lawyers, I`m going with the phones. No matter how smart or complex the phones get, you can still just turn them off. I`m Dan Henninger.