Slashdot Mirror
$10 Paper Mobile Phone To Launch This Year
ROU Nuisance Value writes: "Made (mostly) out of recycled paper and coming this year. The Register article makes the phone sound like a non-hoax, and claims that companies like McDonald's are interested in mass distribution. If so, it's destined to replace AOL CDs as World's Most Annoying Giveaway. Inventor's Web site has pictures of prototypes but I'm willing to bet that call quality won't be worth the paper the phone's printed on. She promises a $20 laptop, too. Anybody know if the patents/inventor/company are for real?"
Who else needs anonymous wireless communication?
In your rush to demonize cellular companies, try to remember one thing; noone's forcing you to sign that contract so you can get a free cell phone. Remember that all businesses get their power and money from you, the consumer.
For those of us who don't fall for gimmicks (A phone for a penny? What a deal!), companies such as Sprint PCS will be happy to provide you with service for only as long as you need it. Their phones aren't necessairly the cheapest, but their contracts are only necessary to get a better plan.
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
Don't confuse the issue with logic. This is slashdot, after all! :>
--
A host is a host from coast to coast...
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
>Wow! Dial a single number, and talk to 300
>million people!
Please listen to this entire phone call before you hang up. I thought it was too good to be true, too, but then I tried it and now I have received over 14 million one dollar bills in my mailbox!
Here's what you do...
-LjM
Was the phone turned on at the time?
I've been cleaning IBM model M keyboards for years by unplugging them, hosing them off with the shower head, and letting them dry for a day or two before reconnecting...
Granted, this is for serious grime, usually just shaking out the accumulated crud is fine.
-LjM
I saw it on a national TV news show (don't recall which) a few months back. I don't really understand why the hell anyone would want one, but...
As for the laptop, I don't remember hearing about that, but what good is a disposable computer? First of all how fast can it be? Secondly, you obviously wouldn't be storing anything important there. So is it just a clunky, throw-away calculator? And finally, isn't all this ridiculously wasteful? I'm American and I'm sure I am far more wasteful already than a lot of people, but *damn*.
I have a woman and money. Life is good.
Yeah, go ahead and bash cell phones. But I find having one extremely useful. I like being able to find my friends when we're all out a different places on a weekend night. I also like the price, which is why I got one in the first place. For $39 a month, I get 1200 minutes. Hhmm...that means I get long distance for $0.03 cents/minute! I'd like to see your long distance carrier beat that. I'd spend that much on long distance without a cell phone anyway!
The worst part is that I manage to use most of the 1200 minutes up too.
In the audio world, the height of technology IS a vacuum tube.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
I sure hope these new phones don't interfere with my Eternal Life Ring. I think the cold-fusion battery in the phone my just emit enough bogons...
Umm... they _could_ sell phones to some of the other 6 billion people on the planet.
Still, 300 million is a huge run for any product, except for mabye paper clips, matches, AOL disks, etc.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Seriously. What I'd like to see is a genuine CrackerJack Cellphone. Sure beats the hell out of plastic toys...
What do I do, when it seems I relate to Judas more than You?
Still not dead.
OK so what do you do with disposable phones? you throw them out after they are used. Think along the lines of if 30 million people used these phones in a year, and replaced the phone 10 times each during the year, how many phones will that be?
Do your best, hope for the best, suspect the worst.
> Make them cheap and exposable
Oops! I meant DISposable.
My native language is not english, and even proofreading in preview missed that.
This looks a lot like the technology described in last week's I, Cringley column.
i think dealing with something you may find annoying when someone else does it but when you do it its fine, is exactly hypocritical and the price of progress.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Disposable cell phones are a perfect example of resource consumption out of control. Isn't this a rather frivolous use of resources? With all the environmental issues facing the world, this type of product development is as ridiculous as it is disturbing.
What is the cost of disposing of the cell phone and all its internernal components in an environmentally sound way? I would love to see that added to the cost.
Well, duh. It is for outgoing calls only. Or have you not been paying attention?
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try."
Whether or not you buy this one, there'll be a convergence between current phone design and this thing. You'll end up with a phone so light you'll end up losing it more often than your house keys, and probably have to clip it to your navel ring. -schmaltz
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
Sure enough new models will come out in the shape of a scrubbing spunge.
Next some marketing dude may propose making them like rubber ducks that quack when you get a call :-)
-miki
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
Well, if most of this new phone is really made from paper, at least it will not add that much to the waste problem like all those discarded conventional phones do.
You can always recycle the paper again...
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
Dude it would be like those dick tracey watches... I have always wanted one of those ever since i was a little kid...
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
yeah, but the controller on the keyboard is basically just a ROM to sort out the keystrokes and send the scancode for the proper keycode to the PIC. Its a lot less complicated than doing high frequency circuits... dealing with interference on high freq circuits is not fun.
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
looking at that picture of it unfolded, i dont see a battery anywhere in there. Granted it could be in/near the chip and the IC board is mostly screened by the keypad circuit layer, but I wasn't able to make out a battery position anywhere on the IC... that tends to detract from the realism--or at the very least the usefulness--if the battery is too small to see, then it probably cant hold much of a charge to power a transmitter like a cell phone for very long.
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
dont you mean 4C artwork... if it is for print anyway... damn me and my marketing experience.
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
if they are disposable, its a decent ratio... low in fact. Think about how many TRASH BAGS there are for each individual in the united states... just between me and my roomates (a rather poor statistical sample i admit) the ratio is like 30 to 1... Disposable lighters the ratio is about 2 to 1 (damn pyros), so i dont think its that far fetched.
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
Gimme your spiral notebook ted, i need to print me up some new ram for my phone so i can 'hack' it.
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
boy would a paper computer put intel out of business... OMG MY LAPTOP IS ON FIRE AGAIN... DAMN PENTIUM V's run too hot! also, it would screw the overclockers... trying to water cool a paper laptop... burhahaha OH NO WE SPRUNG A LEAK!!!
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
Silicon Labs, for which a few of my classmates intern, here in Austin, has integrated at least all the RF functions onto a single chip, and they're selling those by the truckload to Motorola and Nokia. I wouldn't be surprised if they integrated more of the functions soon, or already have.
I was at a conference in '99 where Nicholas Negroponte (spelling?) of the MIT media lab was speaking about this technology and its application being mostly lowcost computers for the third world. From what I understand, it all has to do with electro-conductive ink being printed on standard paper. Now considering that they were working out the logistics of a computer, I don't see how this would be too unfeasable for phones.
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
The numbers are to the left of center in the larger photo, and the 3 button looks decidedly lower than the two button. Although the unit in the smaller photo is a different design altogether, with better aligned numbers, and white-on-black writing. The web site looks like that of a typical struggling startup, with pics of prototypes. Possibly doctored, possibly poorly designed, but either way not unusual for a cash-strapped startup. Doing final quality three-color artwork on a prototype intended to raise venture capital wouldn't be a priority.
Landfill hell? Did you see the size of this thing? A single daily newspaper subscription would probably take the space of several hundred of these phones per day. This would be trivial for landfills.
Righteous!!!
I broke down and bought a cell this year when my wife's second pregnancy got complicated. It is kept in her handbag and off unless an emergency. It's been used precisely once and it was worth every penny for that one call.
illegitimii non ingravare
Not sure about the photo, but the site looked totally fake to me - far too little information, fairly poor site design condidering they're a hi-tech company. I also can't believe that this is all economically viable, and if it were then why hasn't it been bought by Motorola or another major mobile phone company...?
They're paper. They're cheap. And, oh yeah, they're disposable. That throws a bit of a wrench into your straight-forward calculation because one person might purchase very many. And if they're distributed in some fashion--like a Happy Meal prize (free brain tumors for the children with a hey-that's-not-beef and hey-that's-no-cheese cheeseburger? The only prize I ever got from McDonalds was a clogged artery)--the numbers aren't so unbelievable.
If a corporation is a personhood, is owning stock slavery?
Hey, if they can make a $20 dollar laptop, think of the size of the beowulf cluster you could make for $100,000!
All the phones are prolly going to have the same phone number...
Wow! Dial a single number, and talk to 300 million people!
--
This space left intentionally blank.
One in 12 people on the planet now has a cell phone.
So, we'll say about 500 million to be overly conservative. This company thinks they can add another 300 million in one year to the total.
It's not impossible. If the phone is cheap enough, they'll get a lot of people using them. And they seem to believe production costs and such are within range for the $10 phone.
Can they almost double the cellphone market in one year? Well it's been increasing at a rate of about 60% a year as is...
Please read the press release on the site. It should be pretty clear that this is a hoax... (count the exclamation points, for one thing...)
Suddenly, paying five cents for copies doesn't seem so bad.
Well, so much for the usefulness of Caller ID. Maybe they'll come up with a Caller GPS instead?
First winter rain-
even the monkey
seems to want a raincoat.
-Basho
Lets make a few statements and then go from there.
:)
We will say in our ficticious example that.. there are 250 Milllion Americans.
Now there are 300 million of these phones. Okay 1/10 of 250 million is 25 million, if 1/10th of people used this phone thats 25 million, most of these people are going to buy more than one, assume that at least more than one phone per person.. thats 50 million phones easily. And if you can deliver it withthe cost of a calling card I bet you would see even more usage than that..from people who typically use calling cards for their long distance etc.. or just are on the go etc, make a trip grab a phone.. I thinkmarketing would have a lot to do with this, but dont forget the pones ARE disposable..
Jeremy
--------------------------
--
fight global cooling
Also, the seem to have heaps of headlines in their media section, but they arn't links. Probably fake. If you had 20 people, with articals about ur new product, you would want to link to them, wouldn't you?
And a paper laptop.. for $20... Get real. Unless it's got the power and GUI of a $2 pocket game thing.
Hmmm...what an interesting acronym. I think PCP is what this inventor is all coked up on!!
-Rylfaeth
If such a thing would exist, it would have made way much more noise in the other medias (tv, printed). Ericsson, nokia, or Motorolla would have bought the technology because such a thing could take a big bite off their phone market.
:).
10$, including wireless controllers/ICs, antenna, control logic, and battery? Oh yeah and they have to make a little markup on each devices, plus the resellers has to make a nominal markup... I don't dig this. Plus the web site has way too vague (if not) information about it (technical, specifications, digital? etc). Again, prolly the next big hoax that you'll read only on the internet but not in the "real news". Hey if it's written somewhere and it has a web site, it must be real huh?
my 2c.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I mean it gots to be more stylish than one of them punk ass paper phones.
cat
The $20 laptop is the same one Dilbert gave to his PHB. To refresh your memory (if needed), the PHB computer is rebooted by turning it upside down and shaking it in a lateral motion. =)
cat
That's more that one phone for each citizen of the U.S.
Dude, how many AOL CDs and floppies do you have? I've received 6 CDs in the DVD boxes just in the past 6 months.
Yeh, but masterbating is so much more fun when I have my boyfrend on the line.
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
Do not click above link. Trust me on this one.
doesnt stop monitoring, all they have to do is lock onto your specific frequency, and follow you around with a police scanner. I can do it, its that simple, i very much doubt these will include encryption and other high end features.
.....eat the phone.....
Just don't leave it in your pants pocket when you do laundry.
As long as all the drug lord has to do is make outbound calls why the hell not? I do believe I've read something about this, and they're just going to be to make calls, not recieve calls. Be great for the car even though...pick one up in a pep boys, and if you (god forbid) breakdown somewhere, just make a call from it and get a tow.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
cmon, hanven't any of you taken apart your keyboard to find two-three layers of plastic with little contact traces(flexible mind you) inside.
the whole controller on a keyboard is no bigger than the one in this picture.
the last layer seems to be a PC board, and I know alot of you have cells with simmilar or smaller electronics.
Personally I don't think it's too far-fetched.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
I looked at their media section and found the ananova refences to be true:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_89877.html
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_186742.html
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
This price seems much further out there than the phone price
'Most men would sooner die than think, and most men do.'
Well more or less (similar concept, different materials - plastic)
Check out these keyboards
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent
Of course it is -- anyone competent has used violence to get what they want long before that!
Did you read the artical?
It is reusable, jsut phone them up
and top it up..
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
at least you'll have something to munch on when you unwrap your big mac and realize that television advertisments have deceived you once again...
"ooh, I got you all wet..." "yes, but my martini's still dry."
I'm sure these phones will have some way to monitor your exact position, or relay all your calls to the RIAA, or suck the blood out of your ear and do a DNA test. No new technology is created these days that doesn't violate our privacy in some circumspect way.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
The FCC has mandated that it be possible by October 2001 to geolocate most calls to 911 from cell phones. While it's possible to do this at the base stations by measuring the exact time of signal arrival, as far as I know, no company is upgrading their base stations since it's so expensive. I believe most are planning on placing the functionality in the phone itself by having the phone receive GPS signals. Can it possibly be the plan to insert GPS receiver capabilities in a $10 phone?
Actually, this makes it more realistic looking, seeing that it's made out of paper and all. This isn't some nice sturdy metal, so not everything will align.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
These products serve a niche, just like those disposable cameras, which BTW, take pretty decent photos.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Plus, if it's made out of mostly paper, I'm sure you could use it to roll when you're out of Zig Zags.
J
"I never metadata I didn't like."
If there was any doubt... this product officially brings an end to the infamous, "Is that a cell phone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" line. No longer can it be used willy-nilly, or to the amusement of friends and strangers alike.
::sigh::
Progress: At too great a cost?
woohoo. cheap mobile phones? alright!
:P
Now maybe we can somewhat catch up with Japan and everyone can have a mobile phone
I'll certainly buy one of these things when they come out.
otoh $20 laptop? I doubt that's going to be any good
-since when did 'MTV' stand for Real World Television instead of MUSIC television?
I always wondered what it would be like to hear 300 million ppl say "hello" at the same time!
-since when did 'MTV' stand for Real World Television instead of MUSIC television?
16 Cell Phones In Parallel Net Access Does this mean I can get something like this to work for cheaper than 16 $50 phones?
-since when did 'MTV' stand for Real World Television instead of MUSIC television?
Actually, if you invest a fair chunk of cash in the beginning, then the unit price goes way down.
The cost of getting an ASIC (Application Specific IC) designed is continually dropping, and the price of the ASICs are very low once they are in production. Atmel has a system of cell-based ASICs, which basically consist of an a-la-carte function list that you can mix and match as you please. They have RF, microcontroller, USB, ethernet, counters, timers, and a bunch of other stuff available. They aren't the only game in town, either - there's a lot of competition in the chip business. The ASIC route also solves the size issue, since the main reason for chips to be as large as they are is the packaging. If the chips were much smaller (or everything is integrated into one IC), it would be impossible to solder them to PC boards.
Once you pay the design costs ($50k to $250k), you have one or two chips that are cheap in high quantity (and 300 million is VERY high quantity).
- The Sigless Wonder
I'm surprised nobody thought of this yet, but couldn't you make a cable that plugged into the $10 paper cell-phone and went into a computer's audio out / in and then use some software to use it as a wireless modem?
On the german TV station "Pro Sieben" there is a TV show called Galileo, it's aboout new inventions, science and all new stuff that will rock your world. Now, it's not all that technical, but pretty informative and interesting. About a month ago those paper phones were presented, together with an interview of her, they even showed that paper Laptop, although it didn't work yet. But the phone worked and was presented, it looked just as fake as the pics (because it IS just paper, it can't look "not cut&pasted"). But I don't think they would've brought it into the program if it were fake.
given the quantity they are planing on producing, it is very possible that they can reach the price point they want. but I wouldn't count on the thing in an emergency, the range will probably be about ten feet from the cell station.
If you were talking on one of these phones, or using one of the laptops outside, and it started to rain?
This is of course, making the assumption that these will be made bio-degradable. Even if not initially, but later on.
Aside from the reasons already mentioned, a phone made of paper will wear out fast, causing you to buy another if you still want one.
This of course is additional revenue for the company who makes them.
I wouldn't be overly worried about the environmental damage this might cause, the plain old household battery causes a lot more, and most people still use them.
About 4 months ago I saw it. It essentially is laminated paper that is folded over and over to make the appropriate contacts for buttons. there is a jack (who knows how) out of the "phone" which a headphone type jack plugs into. presumably it goes in the ear and picks up your voice via the earphone. I couldn't help but think What a collosal waste. I'm in favor of reducing consumption, and building things that last, not this "throw away" mentality. G.
"Sometimes you've got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight" Bruce C0ckburn
America craps bigger than the Netherlands. There's plenty of room for lots more trash. If we do run out of room from the onslaught of disposable paper phones, we can always export it to Afghanistan, Australia, or Austria. And those are only the A's.
The press release seems to have been written by that college friend we all have who's out of control with exclamation points and capitalization and who never quite understood the rules of grammar.
.com companies, which go public with no substance behind them, our IPO will bring about changes that put products that people want, in the palm of their hands!!!
;^D
Here are some classics from the release.
We are changing the paradigm from every angle.
We are a company that makes things happen!!! Product is KING and unlike all these
Believe me, there's more -- and it gets better. With all this well-written language, they simply must be real, right? Right?!!
Ruffin Bailey
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Well, yeah, for the big-time, mansion-living "movie-style" drug lords, yeah, going the 'real' cell-phone as opposed to a paper POS is not going to change.
.22 test.
However, for your small-fry type of criminal, a $10 phone would be beneficial. Especially given how much easier it is to destroy the things. (Match, phoosh.) And yes, I have helped to destroy several cell-phones (mostly on purpose... we were supposed to destroy them, just not supposed to have as much fun as we did) so some models can take a surprising amount of damage and still dial out. Not surprisingly, none of them can withstand the
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
*nod* That was the point I was trying to make. It's easy to look at phone records and see that Person A called Person B at a certain time. But given the relative ease of using a false name and paying cash, this is easily rendered moot. And, in most major cities (especially ones where they have lots of those nice shiny high-rise window buildings), you can get so many 'false' bounces from a tower trace that it's not worth it.
Of course, if you know the general location (say a couple block radius) then there are still ways to narrow it down. But first you have to get those couple blocks. And God help the tracers if the caller is moving at any appreciable speed.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
No mommy I want the pokemon gold cell phone!
That's a dumb story.
The author had reached "a Zen-like stage"?
She "knew that [she] would love Geology 101"?
She was "engaged in a serious game of tic-tac-toe with the girl sitting next to [her]"?
Well, if she was so into Geology, why the fuck was she playing tic-tac-toe? And why the fuck hadn't she see "The Sixth Sense" yet? It's an awesome movie!
You wouldn't think so ... until you saw my friend dive into a kiddie-pool off of a card-table after 6 hours of drinking. Of course, it was a Samsung, not a Motorola, but he let the thing dry, and it was just like new.
That site, that article, those pictures look so bullshit its not funny. The only thing missing is a April 1 article date.
Come on! $20 for a laptop? What kind of a chip you gonna have in there? A DORITO? (Apologies to Wierd Al)
What the fuck goes through your moderators heads? How is this post flaimbait in ANY way? This guy's just pointing out that this article was posted before!!! You dumbasses....yeah go mod me down...I don't have any karma any way!
Of course, this also means that instead of those stupid subcription cards falling out of magazines I can look forward to seeing these babies scattered all over the isle in the 7-11.
liB
This guy has a similar idea.
I wonder who got round to filing patent first for the 'paper computer'?
The circuit technology sounds similar, except the phone people seem to go for a plastic substrate (going by the photo of their 'working model').
What is this? I don't believe a word of it. There are no facts on that website, and the media list is a page boasting how many people have been hoaxed.
Besides, even if it is real, this isn't going to be given away in boxes of Crackerjacks, or given free with Big Macs at Mickey's.
These things will not be cheap to produce, and talk time will be no cheaper because of the make-up of the phone. When was the last time McDonald's gave away $5 worth of anything free?
April Fool come early I say. The game's up, it's a fair cop. Shenanigans! Own up. missus, we should be told.
Now wash your hands.
As far as I can see, I think it should be possible to replace the printed circuit boards with paper ones and even create resistors and capacitors on this board, but what with the semiconductors that are needed? Simple transistors shouldn't be too difficult, but I don't think they can add a microcontroller that way.
This means they also need a few IC's and they can cost a bit more than a few dollars (especially if you want a laptop). It also becomes more difficult to recycle the thing, since it will contain pieces of plastic and metal.
I had basic calculator which was bussness card sized (2mm thick) and worked with light. Unfortunately it broke, and I've not found another one yet.
Didn't see any deep technical specs on this phone but all this talk about paper made me ... remember an article on printing out your own computer - on that wacky zzz site.
So as one poster said, fax me a phone.
closed minded is as closed minded does
With disposable cameras, you return the camera to get your photos developed and they reuse most of the components. It does not appear they are planning anything like this, not that people would have reason to do this anyways.
If talking greeting cards cost several bucks apiece, I don't see how selling a significantly more sophisticated device for 10 dollars without reusing parts will lead to a profit.
I'll just stick with the cell phone for a penny at car toys
You generally pay for the service of the cell phone, not the actual phone.
If 300 million of these are going to be shipped in one year, how are they going to handle all of these calls?
Think about it, 60 minutes x 300 million phones = 1.8 billion minutes of call time. Don't forget the fact that you can get more call time by charging your credit card, it could easily go over 2 billion minutes. Where is this woman making the devices going to get the network infrastructure to handle all of these calls? I don't see how this works out, someone want to help me?
Wow, that sure puts a new spin on the Treat of the Week. Man, all we ever got were crappy stickers...
the point of them is that they're so cheap it doesn't really matter if they get lost or destroyed.
Along those same lines... the other picture on that page, with the phone being "unfolded" the buttons are white on black, instead of black on white. Perhaps two different prototypes, but still struck me as odd.
I think I remember reading about this last year in Wireless Week Magazine, from what I remember from the article was that they got the phone working, but they had sound quality problems.
How will the laptop work? I mean a phone is one thing but, a computer? How will it store data and how will the monitor work? Wouldn't a flat screen monitor add more to the cost of the laptop?
From my first impression, it seems that this technology would be closely (if not the same) as what is discussed in last week's post:1 &mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/01/19/15824
This 'new' (read rediscovered) medium seems very promising, and, in fact, it is stated in the older post that while it might cost thousands of dollars to 'print' the first model, it costs about $15 for each additional print. That is an ENORMOUSLY low duplication cost.
It's funny that in last week's post, it is acknowledged that a laptop could be made so cheaply, and once it's a cell-phone, we start having doubts.
I don't know either way, for sure. Regardless, we'll hear lots more about film-based circuitry in the future.
-k.
actually it is hard to find out the location of someone using a cell phone(I believe this is what they ment by "trace") you must find out what tower they are on then what frequency that they are actually transmitting on then use directional antennas to find out where they are. Not that easy, when you have a congested band and "reflections"(when a signal bounces off of a building or mountain and gives you a false reading.)
Look even closer and you will see that the hand holding the red portion is actually holding on to a flap that extends from the left side of the numeric pad. This suggests that the cicutry extending from the right side of the numeric pad would fold-up behind the pad, and the flap off the left side would fold over that.
Sorry, accidentally hit submit instead of preview
Look even closer and you will see that the hand holding the red portion is actually holding on to a flap that extends from the left side of the numeric pad. This suggests that the cicutry extending from the right side of the numeric pad would fold-up behind the pad, and the flap off the left side would fold over that.
The clear circuit runs would actually wrap around the green PCB that the guy is holding in his right hand in the photo, causing the button contacts to be in direct contact with the PCB. Continue wraping in this manner and the contacts would end up in the right place in relation to the key pad.
When you were done wrapping up the right side so that it was all tucked neatly behind the keypad, you would simply fold the flap on the left side over the whole wad, making a nice neat little red package.
why can't the electrical contacts sit on top of the black with cutouts to show the numbers.
You would also see the circuit runs as the overlaid the red background of the keypad.
if you look at the picture, that part will have to fold out over the front.
I did look at it. Again, time for you to get a new prescription.
The black-on-white numbers are on the unfolded part, in the panel above the guy's thumb.
Actually, those are the elecrical contacts for the buttons. Look closely and you will see the cicuit runs. So perhaps it is you that needs a new prescription.
How come the phone if supposedly made out of paper.. when unfolded is clear? Obviously it's more plastic than paper. I have yet to see any kind of paper that's clear and reflective like that. Also it probably emits so much radiation that you'll die of cancer before you buy the next phone.
Even though quite a lot about this woman Altshul was written in a Swedish electronics newspaper, I find it hard to believe that she's made anything for real. She didn't even look excited on the photo where she showed up the phone. I mean, wouldn't YOU look excited if you had orders on >200 million phones to several large companies? But some people never look happy, so, the paper phone MAY be real, but then, why so little info about it on the company's website? And listen up now: This is the info on the upcoming paper laptop: "The world's most powerful computer!!! (...) for the price of a text book. I am quite sure that a 5mm thin & tiny $20 disposable computer *never* would beat Sun's $80000 workstations in speed/stability. I am quite sure this IS a scam or fake. But i don't get the point of it. What is so damn funny about fooling a lot of people that you have developed the new, revolutionizing STT Technology? Tobias
No cell phone? I am sure my water resistant Siemens M35 would be just fine after spilling a soda on it.
Seems to me that if nothing else this sort of techonology brings us closer to the communication ideal, ie being able to contact anyone who wants to be contacted any time you need them. You'll notice, of course, that the web site fails to mention whether or not the phone will only be outgoing (common sense seems to imply that it must be). If that's the case, at the very least it'll still be incredibly convenient. Biggest downside of owning a cell phone in this country is that you pay for incoming calls, so it wouldn't be a huge letdown if this thing only supported outgoing.
Don't wrestle with pigs; you'll both get muddy, but the pig likes it.
people always try and pretend that theregister.co.uk is killfiled from the /. submission queue. This post shows what a load of balls that theory is.
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
No, it's not a hoax. Most definitely real. Most definitely will make the inventor wealthy and she deserves it - has worked on this for years and invested a lot of her own money. How refreshing in this age of foolish half-baked ventures run by foolish half-baked CEOs. Still, I wonder how much radiation pours out of this puppy...
Free AOL CD's are a good thing. They make good coasters, they're good for practical jokes (scratch one and hand it to someone saying "I borrowed your _____ CD"), and they fly well. You can entertain kids by shining light onto the CD (through a prism/polarized filter/etc.) and viewing the reflection, or by looking at one through a microsoft, er, microscope. ;)
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US06061580__
It is outgoing only, it is intended to be disposable, it is intended to be used as a phone card would be, though that seems a rather ambitious price target.
It looks to me like "paper" is a misnomer, more likely kapton or similar film on which conductive traces are set, the keyboard is pretty much the same resistive sheet looking stuff you find in a lot of inexpensive components.
This is not a major innovation, the patent is very narrow (and therefore weak).
Randi's earlier patent:
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US05965848__
which forms the basis for construction of the phone is broader and more interesting and claims, basically, using what are commonly termed "flex circuits" folded up to form the entire product.
More entertaining is her patent on cereal action figures that dissolve to form a serving of cereal.
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US05863583__
Randi seems to have been awarded 9 US patents on 3 basic ideas - an extremely "little bit Edison" indeed.
With something like this on the horizon, it's starting to feel like we're living in "the future" that we imagined when we were kids... of course, that varies from person to person, but I speak as a late-twenty-something :)
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
I think you both need your eyes checked :). The numbers on the keypads do line up. That is, the numbers line up but they are shifted left on the button. And, in the unfolded phone, the black buttons are just the bottom layer. The black-on-white numbers are on the unfolded part, in the panel above the guy's thumb.
I don't think there's a claim that it's thin film technology (it's called super thin technology). ;^)
Ahh, those marketing folks pulled a fast one on you, just imagine what they do to non-chemists
Of course those greeting cards that record your voice have a silicon chip in them and it wouldn't
surprize me if that if this turns out to be real, there's a silicon chip in there as well attached
by epoxy to a thin film flexible circuit board which has an embedded antenna and a voltage
regulator in thin film technology.
And the state-of-the art allows for low cost microphone and speaker tranducers (they already
come with those greeting cards), although it looks like from the pictures that it requires a cheap
hands-free cell phone adaptor...
I've seen similar thin film circuit boards with a package-less silicon chip be manufactured for 20
to 30 cents so this isn't really out of the realm of possibility (although I'm guessing a cell phone
chip is more complicated than the ones I've seen).
Just some food for thought...
I can imagine that people who deal with computers all the time think that silicon chips have to be
packaged, but in many "cheap" consumer devices, silicon die are generally wirebonded to cheap
circuit boards and then simply epoxied over. No leads, sockets, connectors, or other stuff...
Given this "cell phone" would probably just 4x4 button cross sense lines, power, ground, antenna,
speaker out, mic in, maybe 24 wires, this is more than what's in your wrist watch, but not by much.
If you have a chance, tear apart one of those greeting cards that can record and playback your
voice... That whole thing cost about $2 to manufacture... The total card cost is dwarfed
by the cost of the battery at about $1... (oh yeah, they have to pay for the paper and
printing too...), doesn't leave much for the electronics (including mic and speaker)...
Admittedly, RF cell phone logic is more advanced than the analog flash memory cells that make up
most of the greeting card, but hey for a few bucks more, you get something better... Right now, 10
million transistor chips cost about $5/die, I'm pretty sure a bare bones cell-phone is on the
order of ~1M transistors... (to put things in perspective, a 6502 had 4,000 transistors)
From the article:
"I'm going cheap and dumb," she told The Register, revealing: "In monetary terms, I want to be the next Bill Gates."
Yeah, Bill Gates is cheap and dumb.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
As long as we can recycle them again. Cheapo limited use phones - RU kidding, this is great. Give them out in malls and amusement parks to keep track of people, give them out in parks for day trippers in case they get lost. Give them out on field trips, the kids, etc. When its done just toss it in the phone recycle bin and pick up another. For the price of phone card you could have minutes and a phone. Are you kidding this is great.
CMOS camera chips are much cheaper to make than
the conventional charge couple time. Moderate
resolution ones can be manufactured for a couple
dollars. These are the chips you see in Barbie's
Camera, watch camera's, som computer cams etc.
You can put such cameras everywhere for minimal cost.
Which often times aids people who want to know that type of information. And nothing that gets broadcasted over airwaves is really all that secure anyway, fsck the little sim cards -- all for show.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
The page is immensely, well, fluffy. There's almost no actual information ("STT: Super Thin Technology," anyone?). The Press Release is particularly telling. It's basically a pep-talk/biography for the founder of DTC (Randi Altchul). Apparently she's 'taking her Toy Mentality to the Technology and Telecom Industries and having a lot of fun along the way!!!' Sounds pretty fake to me. The Press Release claims that she's been granted more than 20 patents (including ones for the 'PAPER LAP TOP'), but there are no links or even direct references to said patents (like, say, patent numbers) anywhere on the webiste. Almost certainly a hoax or a scam.
Most places in the world now, you can just go buy a pay-as-you-go cellphone for cheap, especially as far as drug-lord budgets go. And you don't have to give your name, at all.
In Canada, anyway, they will always ask for your name and address, but I told the guy 'It's pay as you go, yuo don't need to know', and he just put in 'john doe'.
And in Europe, where wireless is wayyy bigger, nobody ever even asks unless you want a contract... you walk into the store, pick a phone, and walk out 5 minutes later with a working phone and new phone number, and absolutely no record of who bought what.
Seriously... can't you already get pay-as-you-go phones without giving your name or anything else in the US? Because you can in Canada, or all of Europe, and probably most other places too. It's no big deal at all...
In Canada, the merchants still ask....
In Europe, you just buy what's called an 'open' gsm phone, and you put a phonecard in it.. a smartcard that has your phone# and stuff on it... and it's prepaid. You can buy cards anywhere.. and phoens anywhere... you can keep the same number, or just buy a new one whenever you want. No names are ever asked for... it's not relevant.
You can borrow someone's phone because yours got stepped on and as soon as you insert your card, it becomes your phone number... the phone is just an interface.
Doesn't that make more sense?
I mean, is the US that paranoid? (yes)
I agree with you. Unfortunately, we (Americans and most of the developed world) live in a society that views disposible products as convenient and useful and does not really care about the ecological costs involved. AOL CDs are a good example of this (convenient and useful from AOL's perspective of course).
Unfortuately, the widespread release and use of this product will just reinforce our society's dependance on disposible applications. That's why I hope this and similar technologies will fail until a more ecological friendly idea comes along.
But, as I've read, aren't they having enough trouble with REAL cellphones in foreign countries that are filling up the landfills? Imagine what these things would do.
:)
BTW: A hackable one of these would be cool.
Well, the price quoted back then was a bit cheaper... $2 to create? But I'm not surprised to see them at $10. If it catches on, it'll be a landfill hell. But its a cute idea, and you have to love it.
Right.
I give up.
I point at the utter wastefullness of making disposable products for the sole reason that it is possible to create them, never mind the consequences of those things littering the mullheap.
In reply, I get a couple of trolls calling me a 'commie' (guess that's an insult, or at least meant to be one) and such. Also, the fine moderator corps mark my posting as 'troll' and 'overrated' (overrated? It wasn't even rated to begin with...).
Conclusion: don't interrupt the cheering crowd or you'll regret it. Doesn't matter what they cheer about, just cheer along or buzz off.
I'll buzz off...
--frank[at]unternet.org
Oh you mean the $99 (not optional) "Paper Phone Holder". Which looks just like a cellphone with the front missing. Hey look even a battery in there. [/;-)
Yeah, because as we all know beeing a drug lord these days means you don't have much money and all things you want to get must be through legal channels :)
Karma: 2.71828182846 (Mostly due to small, fun pills)
b) If it's actually comparable to disposable cameras, I'm excited. Sure, they're autofocus, no zoom and no f-stop setting, but that's no worse than your average instamatic. If the disposable phone is basically like a cell phone only with no voicemail and no personal directory, then hell! sign me up for 10!
Nitpick, except for the polaroids, single use cameras are not disposable. They must be given, whole, to a film processor, who then sends the shell back to the factory to be reused. Still not the most effecient modle, but they aren't actually thrown away after one use. (the polaroid one shot comes with a prepaid return package and you can get a rebate for sending it back. I haven't sent mine back yet, but I haven't thrown it away either.)
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
trust a press release that uses three exclamation points in a row. "CONCEIVE IT ! ! ! BELIEVE IT ! ! ! ACHIEVE IT ! ! !" Wow, what a scam.
Disposable cameras are fixfocus, not autofocus. Otherwise, I agree. I would love to have a cell-phone that's easy replacable if it breaks, is stolen, lost, forgotten, or whatever...
Unless somebody makes them so small they fit in your wristwatch, of course (without making it bigger, and still being pleasant to use...)
The disposable device is the brainchild of Randice-Lisa Altschul...
How the heck do you end up with a hyphenated first name?
Actualy, if you'll look at the pic, it shows the phone using a 'hands free kit', a fancy way of saying cheap earphone with an integrated clip-on mic.
Of course, I'm sure you're right about the rest of the stuff
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
Yes, and current cellphones just love watter. I take mine in the shower with me!
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
I suppose there is, and then you can make snowflakes!
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Maybe this is what Ginger is.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
"That's more that one phone for each citizen of the U.S."
Not by much, besides, the article only mentions the phones will be produced in the United States. Considering this fabrication technology would be the cheapest technology available in less than a year; it is quite possible this many units will sell worldwide.
3,000,000 Phones / 6,000,000,000 Potential Customers = 0.05%. This doesn't seem unreasonable considering their apparent new hold on the market as well as the fact that fabrication costs may be lowest in these very large blocks. We have no idea what projected sales vs. projected fabrication costs really are.
Besides, being disposable - who's to say the customers won't need to order more than one in the span of a year? 8-).
Ace
Semi Topical: Anyone notice the story also on the register regarding BT's campaign against cell phones. Looks like everyone's favorite (not!) phone company doesn't believe in competition and economic evolution, do they?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Another throwaway toy for the throwaway generation.
Now the cell phone fot a true Urban Survivalist should be able to survive 20m of submersion and a 10m drop on concrete. Equipped with a cast steel case with a built-in bottle opener and a tear gas spray (helluva lot more useful features that tetris).
I'll pass. Why don't they just use those polyurethene packages from the 80s?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Ok, while I can appreciate the technical achievement that making a cell phone out of paper represents, I'm left wondering: Just who are these things for? So, let's go through the list of people who are likely to use these things.
Joe Average: Joe average, like just about everyone else, probably already has a cell phone for his local area/country. So he won't be using them much.
Mr. Suit: Mr. Suit, on business travel might use one of these, but again, he probably has a good cell phone already, or can just use calling cards provided by his company at the hotel or pay phones.
Bart Simpson: The perfect user! Bart likes to make crank calls. What better way to do it than a totally anonymous $10 phone!! (That way there's no chance of Moe chasing him with his psycho knife).
Mr. Crack Dealer: Another natural user. He likes to be anonymous, and to change his phone number often! He'll probably use them frequently to communicate with his pals Mr. Drug Runner, Mr. Hit Man, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Triad
So I thank the brilliant engineers of this device that will surly increase the number of phone calls that Ivana Tinkle gets, as well as the number of times the phrase "have you got the stuff?" is used on the airwaves. Not to mention posh homeless guys searching through dumpsters for dinner AND a phone!
So the idea of paper telephones is not outrageous.
Disposable communications pushes things in the direction of anonymous communications. This will be a good thing ofor the society, over all.
Politicians deserve to be nervous.
I sure as heck hope this are more better than the free phones they have know
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Great! Just what we need: more displosable junk in the landfills... excellent!
Try being able to buy a mobile phone for cash, leaving very little of a paper trail as to who used it. Also, mobile phones are much harder to trace (although the cop shows always make it look easy), and the limited life-span is actually a "bonus" as when it runs out, you have no incentive to keep it. Set the sucker on fire and move on.
Now, will this happen? Who knows. The FCC might screw things up before these even get printed.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
But think about the patents (look for "Altschul" on delphion.com). The patents aren't on any technology to make the phone particularly cheap or light or easy to manufacture. They are on the notion of a disposable phone itself, and a phone that only works for a limited amount of time. Where is the invention there?
Since the article raises the issue of "women inventors", what this demonstrates to me is merely that women can be just as greedy as men. For women who are smart technologists, we have to look elsewhere. Fortunately, they are around.
Aw hell...the brain tumor was bad enough, and now I have paper cuts all over my ear? dang :)
look at this picture....
Is it just me or does it look somewhat fake? The numbers on the buttons of the phone do not line up, and seem to have been cut and pasted using an imaging program.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Why, these phones are made out of paper! We're working on an all cardboard laptop and next year we're planning to completely replace all the audio recordings in the world with aluminum foil!!!
Why are we doing this? Because *you*, the customer demanded it. With products like these our prices can be LOW! LOW! LOW!
Our paper phone slices! It dices! It juliennes! One tomato lasts a month! How much would you pay for an exquisite phone like this? $99.99? $199.99? $299.99? THAT'S TOO MUCH! We're *giving* this phone away for the rock bottom price of only $29.99!
The Fine Print: This product may not be transferred, sold, reverse engineered, given away, licensed, lent, gifted, or crammed up one's dialated anus. The PaperPhone (tm) is copyrighted, trademarked and patentpending. We can and will release our squadron of trained attack lawers on your ass if you think you can get away with copying our product, Chester!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
In the age of Caller I.d. and blocking, people are less likely to misuse their telephone. When the call isn't traceable, however, things could get interesting. The disposable could be the heavy breather's best friend.
Look for regulation to follow swiftly, along with new "options" for which consumers will be bilked by the ever helpful telcos (ability to block incoming calls from disposable phones, etc.).
I have seen a prototype of these, although it wasn't working it was a great idea, just think of it as one of those desposable cameras. It is made out of paper, so you will have problems if you want a nice solid phone, but there are really made for someone who needs to make a phone call while on the run, or their cell is out of service, they can just run into the local Quicky-Mart and pick up a nice phone that can be used for 15, 30, or 60 mins.
--------------------------------------
I'm a karma whore, mod me up damn you!
--------------------------------------
58.0% slashdot corrupt
To make this work, you'd need one IC capable of doing all of the RF functions of the phone and implementing a microprocessor as well to do the protocol of the phone. We are talking about an 800 MHz RF signal here, and thus an IC that does both UHF linear analog circuits and digital logic functions - that is asking a lot of the IC process, unless you split it into two ICs and then you have to interconnect them. You'd need a crystal for a frequency standard. Microphone, earphone, and battery, and whatever discrete components it takes to glue this together. The rest of it is the "paper" part.
I think you can make it cheap, but I don't see it reaching the $20 price point unless the cell phone companies heavily subsidize it, which means you'd need a monthly charge.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
... the amount of electronics that is going to be thrown away in this way? I work at a small electronics firm, and from last year on it has been nearly impossible to get surface mount tantalum and ceramic capacitors.
Reason: they are being sold by the millions to manufacturers of cellphones. Who wants to sell a couple of hundred to small fish like us?
And this is for non-disposable cellphones only. Make them cheap and exposable, and demand will rise manyfold.
What I heard, at this moment, manufacturing capacity of tantalum capacitors is limited by the rate tantalum mines can dig up the raw materials.
For the surface mount ceramic capacitors, a similar situation exists for the palladium that is used in the end caps.
Any increase in demand will lead to a shortage, and suppliers will only deliver to the largest (not necessarily highest!) bidder.
Oh yes, although the phone is mainly made of paper instead of plastic, this does not mean that the components are as well...
Bruce writes: I think you can make it cheap, but I don't see it reaching the $20 price point unless the cell phone companies heavily subsidize it, which means you'd need a monthly charge.
I've seen Family Radio Service two-way radios for under $20 at Best Buy or one of those stores. They're operating at 467 MHz, so it's lower, but in the ballpark. And unlike this phone, they have an audio amp & real speaker, replacable battery, multi-part plastic housing (at least three molds - front, back, and battery door, likely requiring manual assembly), real (non-membrane) buttons, external antenna (rather than a loop antenna on the circuit board), and probably some LED and/or LCD info (can't remember offhand). Just the packaging on these things, with two-piece vacuum molded clear plastic with an eye-grabbing four-color insert, are relatively expensive.
Strip all that out using an earphone you stick in your ear, one-use battery placed & soldered as a circuit board component, no case (it's integrated with the circuit board), no display or blinking lights, basically cheap out on any component you can, and $10 seems quite feasible with mass market production.
I don't know about the stuff specific to cell phones, but I've designed circuits with short-range 300-433 MHz data transceivers. It's a different RF thing altogether, but even in quantities of a few dozen, you can build them for under $20 (production cost not consumer price).
"Imagine, a mathimatical calculator, given away for free, the size of a bussness card. Who could belive such a thing, I bet it's a hoax, total vapor."
This stuff is going to get cheaper and cheaper. I don't see why it couldn't exist. And after all, in most places in the US you can pick up a phone for free a long with a serive agreement. Notice that this thing doesn't use it's own speakers/mic, so it's really nothing more then electronics.
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
if you look hard enough. Look at everyone claming that the Mac cube image was fake "Look at the shadows, they don't line up! there's no way this is real, I know my Photoshop." Proclaimed one mac site. Sure enough, the photo was exactly the same one use by Apple a couple of days later. Most of the good celeb fakes look more real then the real pics (skin tone differences between face and body are more likely in real images then fake ones.)
If the photo was fake then the buttons would have lined up perfectly, pixel for pixel.
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
I agree with you. Unfortunately, we (Americans and most of the developed world) live in a society that views disposible products as convenient and useful and does not really care about the ecological costs involved. AOL CDs are a good example of this (convenient and useful from AOL's perspective of course).
You just inspired an idea that could save California - turn a national liability into a national asset - that's right - collect all those AOL CDs that pollute our environment, glue them to sheets of plywood (reflective side facing up), and make huge mirror-based solar farms - free!
Plus, you get more (and more useful) "free hours" out of each and every CD this way.
I calculate each reasonably sized solar farm would want a good two million AOL CDs, so if we build enough farms, we could quite possibly put a noticeable dent in the number of AOL CDs floating around.
I wonder if I can patent this...
Yeah, there was an article on this in Newsweek a while back (many months ago at least). AFAIK, the inventor and company is completely real, and it seems like a valid idea. The quality won't be top-notch, but there are a lot of corners that can be cut. These would be particularly good for people like me who would only want a cell phone so they can call in case they really have to and they're far away from a real phone. Voila! A thirty-minute disposable phone!
The phones, 300 million of which should be produced in the US in the first year, are due to be unleashed on the US market in the third quarter of 2001.
That's more that one phone for each citizen of the U.S. Pretty big first run of a new product, wouldn't you say? And where's the battery? And what wireless network are they going to unleash these 300 million phones on, exactly?
My pal at CMU has been checking out a demo on loan (Electronic engineering major or something.) and says it's legitimate. (Not incredibly high-quality, though of course. He says it's like disposable cameras.)
She promises a $20 laptop, too.
OK I need sleep... I first read that as "a $20 lapdance."
I blame society.
Sometimes nothing is a real cool hand.
fax me the phone, will you?
http://www.statepress.com/columns/hepp/index.html
------------
--- There is a man in a smiling bag.
Why do we create disposable products when reusable ones can be manufactured for just as little cash? These products are not recyclable and will probably release toxic materials as they degrade in a landfill. Why not create an inexpensive phone which can be recharged and used more than once? Oh yeah, then the manufactures wouldn't have the constant stream of revenue from users who used up the battery life.
This seems to be a ploy from the cellular providers to get people who can't afford calling plans to begin using mobile phones and, eventually, they will buy a 'real' cell phone. At that time the mobile providers can lock the users into a contract with outrageous termination fees. They are borrowing the drug dealer's business model -- give the first hit and you'll have a cell phone junkie for life.
-josh
fear is the mind killer
Wow. It seems to me that this'd really be a huge boon to people whose phones are monitored (ie, drug lords, mafiosos, etc) -- they just have to buy one of these suckers, then toss it away in a few hours.