Why do we still use phone numbers? I mean, we barely do anymore anyway, right? It’s more a process of remembering someone’s last name at this point, than it is of recalling all 7 or 10 digits (and in the proper order). In accordance with the sweeping changes of our times, i propose an end to telephone numbers!
On the internet, whether you were aware of this or not, every website has a number. A 4 to 12 digit IP (Internet Protocol) address. It’s true! And when you type “http://www.joelbrock.org” into your web-browser, you are in fact “calling” the IP address 67.205.43.172. Some forward-thinking super-geniuses in the 80′s thought that all those numbers were going to get confusing. “Let’s map those numbers to names, that will be at least somewhat descriptive, and a HELL of a lot easier to remember”, they must have thought. And thus we have today, the Domain Naming System or DNS.
So why not DNS for phones? TNS, the Telephone Naming System?
Imagine:
phone://joelbrock.org/cell or phone://joelbrock.org/home
phone://barackObama.com/oval-office or phone://barackObama.com/underground-lair
In truth, we are already part of the way to a TNS system. Our cellular handsets comprise an unconnected, distributed system, whereby long strings of numbers are associated with a name, and usually a context, i.e. “Dad” and “Work”. The phone numbers don’t really even NEED to go away, we simply need a somewhat easy method of mapping names to numbers, the way you can with a web address. With this system in place, we’d never need legislation to allow us to keep our phone number, we could just re-map it.
I am simply asking the slightly dated technology of telephones, and the industries behind them, to keep pace with the times. Man.
On a normal day, HackADay.com is good for seeing what people do with their electrical engineering hobby. But today i find an article, and it gives me pause.
Full disclosure: I have not committed a single telephone number to memory since the acquisition of my first cellular telephone in 2003.