I found this article on Yahoo! today (it's from the LA Times) about how cell phones are showing up in even the tiniest and poorest villages. What's really fascinating is how cellular technology is allowing these folks to "skip a step" in the communication revolution--the cumbersome and expensive Ma Bell-type infrastructure we have here in the US.

For millions of people living in countries where getting a fixed phone line remains a bureaucratic impossibility, the cellphone revolution has allowed them to leapfrog from archaic forms of communication straight into the digital era — and that is changing the fabric of their daily lives.

Fascinating stuff, really. We tend to get more excited around here about the Internet than cell phones, yet it's obvious that the latter is actually having a much greater effect on humanity. It is amusing, too, that I don't own a cell phone because I'm afraid of the brain cancer and getting stuck with some gigantic bill from a shyster-style cell plan.

What do you think historians will say about the cell phone 50 years from now?