Mobile Gadgets Now Outnumber Humans

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Your fun fact of the day

Do you fear that one day we'll all become servants of our robotic overlords? If you want to fuel that fear, think about how they might communicate with each other, and then consider that the number of active mobile devices is higher than the human population, marking a milestone that electronic gadgets have never reached before. Many of these mobile devices also happen to be considered "smart."
Eric Mack over at CNET did some digging on the matter, though what prompted his curiosity is a mystery we have yet to solve -- perhaps Mack is already working for the other side? Or maybe we're just paranoid. Either way, the human population sits at a few million below 7.2 billion people, with 2 people being added per second (or 1.2 percent annually), according to the U.S. Census Bereau's world population counter.
If you direct your browser to GSMA Intelligence, you'll see that by comparison there are over 7.2 billion mobile connections and growing fast. How fast? Over five times the rate of the human population counter.
Silliness aside, it's a rather remarkable milestone, though whether it's a good or bad one is up for debate. As pointed out by Kevin Kimberlin, Chairman of Spencer Trask & Co., "No other technology has impacted us like the mobile phone. It's the fastest growing man-made phenomenon ever -- from zero to 7.1 billion in three decades."
Also interesting is that all these mobile devices are owned by less than half of the human population.
Image Credit: Flickr (Antonio Fucito)
Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook


More...