I've just referred to them as "magic all knowing talky thing". Series of questions: 1) Did no one tell him the phrase "Smart Phone"? 2) Why was this video posted only a month ago, I can't believe that this video could have been made 5 years after the iphone was introduced, 14 years after the blackberry and 19 years after the first PDA. 3) What is the point of this? What is the end goal?
A former boss of my mine took our team to a Get Motivated seminar, which is essentially a line up of republicans stumping for money. The list of speakers included Laura Bush, Steve Forbes and Rudy Giuliani. When Giuliani got up there, he spent the entire time talking about how if we wanted to be successful in life, we had to embrace email and the internet. This was in 2011. What was amazing were the number of people feverishly scribbling, "embrace the internet" in their workbooks. I ended up having a family emergency and was able to duck out at noon. This is Gingrich's version of the Giuliani thing. He's speaking to a specific audience that exists, he's no dummy. I'm no fan of his Andy Rooney impression, but his Elon Musk impression got my attention during the GOP primaries, for sure.
Of course on so many levels, his question is idiotic, but when it comes to Congress, they need to define things in order to pass laws that effectively regulate them. Newt is not a complete idiot, and my guess is that he has been lobbying in this arena lately and it has left him with a odd feeling that he just can't shake. Anyone can see that technology is challenging government in new ways everyday, and the process only seems to be accelerating. IMHO under Newt's boyish wonder schtick, you can sense a bit of an existential crisis. Newt has long understood regulating things, but regulating actions is so very difficult, especially when you have convinced yourself that you are against that sort of thing. I see this video as a cry for help.
Interesting thought. Gingrich has long been the friend of giant telecoms, and the giant telecoms are suffering through apps very much like yours. Perhaps it's a feint to redefine "cellular phone" as something other than "a point-to-point voice communications device that uses a cellular network."