My first digital bond epiphany

Just thought I’d share some back story. It’s 1999. I’m working at the BBC (not news) and they send me to Cannes for some festival or other. It’s mid-morning and everyone is either networking or huddled in business “lounges” trying to plug Ethernet cables into their clunky laptops for connection. And then there’s me with an idea. I left the convention center, crossed the road and ordered a coffee at a cafe on the beach with a gorgeous view of sand and ocean. I took my new Nokia 8110 banana phone (the Matrix had just made it the coolest phone in the world at the time), and placed it alongside a slimline HP laptop. After some fiddling I got the IR port on the phone (infrared, like a remote control) to talk to the laptop at 9.6kps (about as fast as getting a VFS appointment). I needed a security dongle to connect to the BBC’s internal desktop and then voila, I was downloading email headers (no body text or images) a world away from the office and without any wires. A million countries and startups later and I still love a nice beach (and 5G). But I don’t do emails any more of course. I wonder where and how we’ll all be working in another 25 years… --- **Post Details:** - **Subreddit:** r/digitalnomad - **Author:** u/Imaginary-City-8415 - **Score:** 6 upvotes - **Upvote Ratio:** 88.0% - **Comments:** 4 - **Posted:** 7/3/2025 - **URL:** https://reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/comments/1lqkqhe/my_first_digital_bond_epiphany/