The upward mobile

This Korean experience will soon be reality here in the US. In "Upward Mobility," BusinessWeek.com describes the phone-based digital life of ambitious Korea University student Park Hyun-A, who watches satellite TV, reads e-books, plays games, snaps and sends photos, and – oh, yeah – text messages her friends on her mobile. The article doesn't mention that she connects to Cyworld or some other social site by phone, but she probably does that too (Cyworld's used by 90+% of South Korea's teens and 20-somethings and last summer launched in the US). Business Week goes on to take a very thorough look at just how fast-developing all the services for smartphones are. And the Washington Post looks at the American female fashionista, who "wants her technology to cut a stylish and up-to-the-minute profile" ("we're not being sexist," its sources say, just accurate). Meanwhile, CNET zooms in on a new phone service called Phling that says it can sync up the music libraries on your phone and your computer. It's "the first to offer this capability over a wireless network, which streams the music from the PC to the handset." And USATODAY reports that mobile music could be the recording industry's saving grace. At $3 a pop, the new, richer-sounding master ringtones (or "mastertones") are slated to represent $6.8 billion in revenue by 2010. "Labels are thrilled not only with the fat revenue stream but also with promotional potential," according to USATODAY.