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"Disposable" Cell Phone Actually Repackaged Nokia
ewhac writes "Hop-On.com apparently started distributing the first versions of their disposable/recyclable cell phones, which will offer 60 minutes for $30. Hop-On claims their proprietary technology makes this possible. However, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that, upon cracking open the phones, they found not the kind of disposable cell phone technology covered earlier on Slashdot, but a jury-rigged Nokia. When confronted, Hop-On CEO Peter Michaels dodged by saying the phones the Chronicle took apart were, "promotional samples only. They are not Hop-On production phones." The article also calls into serious question Hop-On's other claims, and also points out California revoked Hop-On's corporate status last month."
The article claimed they had raised 5 million in financing. How the hell do you plan on building a new cel phone design with that minimal amount of money. Just the injection molding tools and the assembly/pakcaging equipment required to make it at $30 would cost more than that.
I'll take free beer over free software any day.
"...upon cracking open the phones, they found not [a] disposable cell phone..., but a jury-rigged Nokia."
Isn't this a good thing? The worst hit from this will be taken by Nokia, because now consumers will wonder why they are being charged $150+ for the innards of a phone that goes for $30.
This should be pure joy for gizmo hackers.
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
--G
I dunno what phones cost in the US, but still I would not pay $30 or £ equivlent for a disposble phone. You can quite easily pick up a pay-as-you go phone over hear for £29.99 (maybe about $40??) and for that price, you get a fully featured phone (last time i saw one, it was a Phillips Genie) Im still not sceptical about the whole voice recognition thing.. what if you're in a noisy / bad reception area? will it still be able to recognise then?
Fight Crime - Shoot Back!
2. Press Releases tout new product, articles in respectable publications back the products. (I saw this in Time at one time)
3. Time passes, money is spent (embezzled?) and the product never really surfaces.
4. Eventually we find out it was a bunch of BS and the demoes we're fake.
Where have we seen this before? ;)
What's the point about disposable mobiles anyway? It's just more pollution. Less quality. It's just plain idiotic.
There should be a big fee on disposable mobiles to cover the recycling costs of the stuff.
Plus mobiles are terminals which do a lot more than voice telephony. This trend will only accellerate in the years to come.
I dount very much that this has 'mistake proof.' VR - has it been invented yet? Is it ever possible? Certainly not in a 30USD phone, and especially not given the non-dictionary words this address book will need to have in it - peoples' names and nicks, and business names.
Mobile/ cell Phones - however cheap they are - are always treated as mission critical appliances wby their owners. Owners will NOT appreciate having to f*** around trying to get the correct number to dial 'cos there's no other UI alternative.
example (and probably what hopon are basing their tech on - if it does exist, but that's another matter)
I have one of these nokias details here with VR for top ten numbers of your choice, and I never use it. Try standing on a noisy street shouting 'Mum, Mum' into the phone and it keeps dialling 'Mee Mee' - your local food delivery place, and you'll see what I mean.
Don't make all tech too simple! How can you 'EZ-Interface' an SMS/ Text msg UI?
That's if it isn't all vapour ware.
http://milkshake.dexy.org
no but they did the network security audits!
I remember this being the "next big thing" about a couple of years ago, what happened? These guys couldn't swing the licensing?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
A company comes out of no where, promising new technology at a supposedly obsene price.
....uh, yeah, those were promo phones, yeah, that's the ticket!" seems that if your were marketing a disposable phone, you'd at least USE YOUR PHONE FOR THE PROMO! BAD BUSINESS, NO COOKIE!
After the people 'in the know' say, "we don't trust you, you smell like snake oil," the san fran chronicle says
"hey, their phones aren't what they said they were!"
so their CEO comes back with a "uh, um
...and I quoteth from business 101
"5. Proving the old business-school saw that "any idiot can sell a dollar for 80 cents," online-currency company Flooz.com in July launches a special offer whereby American Express platinum cardholders can buy $1,000 of Flooz currency for just $800.
6. A month later, Flooz.com ceases processing transactions. It declares bankruptcy in November, leaving those who bought Flooz currency stuck with worthless e-dollars. "
See what happens when you overreach your abilities? someone needs to tell these businesses to make sure the stuff is feasable before they make promises.
I forsee a very similar future unless they get their act together...
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
Candid Camera recently did a skit where they did the "disposable phone"... it was a regular phone that they claimed you got 10 2-minute phone calls on, and could receive incoming calls, for $15. Out of the 5-10 people that looked at it, only one person was actually stupid enough to go for it. Snake oil, I tell you. Who would really want one of these?
Step 1. Sell $250 phones for $30.
Step 2.
Step 3. Profit!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Disposable phones are perfect for a terrorist, drug dealer, or other criminal. Simply go to Wal-Mart ot Target, pay cash for the phone and the minutes, and leave. Or have one of your "associates" do the purchase so that you're not on the store cameras. Currently, someone has to use a credit card and pay some money to sign of for service--that's not difficult to do but does present some barrier.
I'm not trying to troll here--it's just that a disposable phone is ideal for someone trying to remain anonymous and under the radar of the authorities. That's a huge advantage.
Myself, I have thought that I would like a mobile phone--but I'm not willing to pay upwards of $150 for a phone plus the monthly contract. And I'm all about pre-paying because I don't plan to use the phone much anyways. A disposable phone with 60 minutes would likely last me a year. At that point, I think I should be allowed to toss the thing since I know many people who get new phones every year at the $300 price tag. I doubt much of this will ever see the light of day, though, since the possibilities for criminals are huge.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
A little off topic, but Budweiser (as in beer) are doing a promotion here in the UK to win prizes... but it is the way they do it that is interesting.
Several cans contain a "GPS transmitter" - when you open the can, they find your location, and a team of people turn up at your door within a few hours.
First, this is going to be prone to a few problems, like people moving.
Second, the "GPS transmitter" is probably a gps receiver, and a mobile phone. When it is opened, it calls a number and reports the location of the device.
Surely these things can't be too expensive if they are in a beer can? Simply a gps receiver and a phone would cost in excess of £100 - but they would have to buy phones outright, so even more.
If I got one, I'd probably try getting it somewhere that the signals would not get out of (convenient faraday cage... (car maybe)), and take the thing apart.
Taking apart the phone is a violation of the DMCA. They should have the Chronicle arrested, and take them to court!
:)
One of the better ideas for a disposable phone that I've seen came out of a student contest run by [IIRC] Metropolis magazine.
It consisted of a thick "business card" phone -- a circuit printed on plastic and wrapped in paper, slightly larger than your average business card. The phone had about 60 minutes of talk time, couldn't receive calls, and had a single large button on one side. The idea was that you could buy a sheet of these phones for about $5-10 per, print your business card on them, and "burn" your own number into the phone. Pressing the button on the phone dialed that number.
This is, of course, insanely useful. A first-contact client can phone you back with very little effort, without having to pay for the call. 911 emergency phones can be given away or sold in stores. Vending machines could let you key in any number you liked (say, your SO) and print up a batch of phones for you.
I think it's on ultra-low-end applications like these that disposable cell phones will really find their stride. Even if Hop-On was legitimate, they'd have a hard time competing against companies like Cricket. Service is already a commodity, and people seem to like the flexibility and robustness of NON-disposable phones.
Chum, this is America. The reason you think it is too cheap to be real, is that you are used to being overcharged.
The US cell phone providers are raking in hand over fist. It's still an immature market, and they lag several years behind in technology. They are behaving exactly the same way as the major long distance providers, trying to achieve monopoly using any trick in the book. Funny thing, they ARE the same companies. I tell ya, if Sprint or ATT tried to sell their service plans in any European country, without dropping prices 50% or more, they'd be laughed out of town.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Hop-On popped!
-
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Dang I'm getting that Pixelon feeling all over again. This sounds suspicious as heck.
In a former life, I worked on a similar scam (at the time, unknowingly). It was for one of the first of the Customer-Owned Payphones back around 1985, called COCOT or COPTS phones.
.COM boom of a year ago).
I won't memtion the exact brand name, but I was one of two design engineers that designed this payphone. The entire industry was new, having just been deregulated. There were about 5 companies producing them at the start, and about 30 by the end, so the industry experienced explosive growth (just like the
The two owners of the company had us start designing the phone. They then proceeded to march in Investors to see "the phone" work, well before it's design was even finalized. At first, we rigged a mock-up to act something like a phone.
"Harumph, it works", claimed the investors. Eventually, we did design and have a fully functional payphone. But most of the phones out there in the industry were horrible. They didn't look or act like Ma Bell payphones, and the most critical areas, how much to charge for the call, and answer detetion (do I thake or return the user's money?) were dismal and highly unreliable.
In fact at one point it seemed that no-one could get these areas of operation reliable.
I assume it was at this point the owners decided to make it a full-blown scam. They sold the crap out of the phone. They sold EXCLUSIVE rights to manufacture the phone to at least 5 companies that I heard of afterward.
The funniest part of the whole story is that my parter and I actually screwed up the whole scam by making the phone actually work well. Instead of doing a nose-dive in 6 months as they expected, the company endured successfully for 4 years!
If anyone has ever seen the movie "The Producers" by Mel Brooks, then you know the plot - oversell the product many 100% - then BK the company and you don't have to pay any investors back. Well, the same thing happened.
Last I heard from the owners, they were hiding out in Snake's Navel, Arizona, and one actually called me, late one night, drunk off his ass, to bitch me out personally for costing him Millions!! Snicker.
Well anyway, I smell the EXACT same type of scam here. These are the bait for the investors, even with the admission that they are mock-ups of the final design. My prediction is, once the money is raked in, then actual production will start on the phone and they'll find there's no way it can be done for $30.00. The people they hired will be left holding the bag, and the bills for manufacturing phones that actually tunred out to cost $100.00 to $200.00 or so like any other phone.
And the owners? They'll be joining the Scammer's Relocation Program in Snake's Navel, AZ.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
$2/minute would mean the phones were $120 for 60 minutes. I *think* you meant $0.50/minute.
Mind you, that still isn't the world's greatest pricing. But you DO get a cell phone in with that.
--- Biffster.org
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
I don't see the point, when any "deactivated" cellphone can still be used (and is legally required to) be able to call 911 on the networks they can access.
Test your net with Netalyzr
as the other poster here pointed out , all cellphones, deactivated,new,never activated,stolen... all can dial 911 here in the states and connect.
There are several products on the market that sell the "911" phone here with nothing but a big red button on it. you can buy them for $39.95 and they take regular alkaline batteries so it will work 2 years down the road when you pull it out of your glovebox and need it.
Problem is... they are a complete flop. noone wants them. Any moron can get a pay-as-you-go phone here for $19.95USD (granted it's the bend over and pay plan where they siphon minutes off you daily even if you dont use it plan) or even less if you will accept a used phone. (Cellular shops here are pretty much scumbag hangouts.. they feel scummy, the salespeople feel scummy, and the places are always screaming Scumbags in their hand painted sale signs, etc...)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Totally nonsensical reference to the DMCA.
I'm going to have to post the rules for Slashtard Bingo someday, since I'm the only person who knows them.
- Have a picture
I had a discussion with someone that manufactures phones, and what he told me was very interesting. The current "bomb cost" of producing a phone is close to $100 for the manufacturer. The markup the manufacturer gets is sometimes less than 5-10% - considering the risks, thats not good money. The way that they usually get the money is through the accessories - the case, headset, etc. The markup on these - sometimes as high as 500%, helps make up for the disapointing phone cost. How someone can make a phone for $30 is beyond me - sounds like another dot-com idea to me.
Another question to ask is - where are all the new numbers going to come from for these disposable mobiles? People are going to want to receive calls as well as send them.
Video Game cheats, hints a
From the article:
"Hop-On Chief Executive Officer Peter Michaels was initially evasive when asked why the phones appeared to be modified Nokias. "Hop-On technology is proprietary," he said in a faxed reply. "
I guess repackaging nokia phones is a "proprietary technology". He should defend his "technology" with a patent.
ok - so this is a cool concept in theory , but the thing that I am so tired of hearing is how we are making so many things "disposable"
I would rather we learn to make thing _organic_.
For example - I was working on making a Golf Tee out of compacted grass seed and plant fertilizer - this way, there would no longer be so many plastic and wood tees polluting the courses (only problem was that when I wrote up the verbage for the patent, I found someone else had beat me to the patent by only a month or so - even had the *exact* same verbage in their product descriptiopn... oh well)
ANYWAY - screw "disposable" I want bio-degradable. If you really want to think of your self as the technocratic elite - then I think that the focus should be on doing all of the cool shit that we like to see, plus more. In addition to making some nifty new wibbidy do da - make sure that the wibbidy do da's that you make are HELP ING the world be a better place in the long run.
This is related to a post that was on the Intel-Yoga thread. The changes of the world have to start happening with us.
please - no more trash. In one hundred years we will all be a dead race due to the fact that the world is nothing but a planet sized dump!
/rant
Holy........Are they saying the "corporate death penalty" (revocation of corporate charter) was actually USED by the Government against a fellow corporation?????
Could be a nice precedent...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
You think that they'd be embarassed to have this Web site up. Did you notice...
- The "mock-up" phone on their front page is actually just a peice of Photoshop handiwork?
- The bogus Time article. While I don't doubt that they made Time (it's amazing what $$ can buy you), their fake "page curl" effect that shows their product on page 3 is a bit much.
- I love how, in the article, they credit the Hop-On CEO as the "inventor". Inventor of what? I'm sure he's hardly the first to think of a disposable cell phone. The technology is obviously not his, nor is it Hop-On's. What did he invent?
- Is that Scooby-Doo rip-off kangaroo thing missing her lower jaw? Or is she just as dazed as the investors? Her joey looks pretty stunned by the whole mess.
- Check out this page. Look at the "models" on the bottom left. It looks like they Photoshop'ed the phones into their hands.
- I couldn't help but think, the "Our Future" link at the top should have lead to here.
Even in the prepaid cellular world, Hop-On is overpriced. You can buy a prepaid phone at a 7-11 for $79.95. Other vendors are even cheaper. If you're willing to overpay for minutes, there are places that will sell you a prepaid, no-contract Nokia cell phone with AT&T service for $39.95. And that's before rebates. You end up paying around $0.25 per minute, which is high, but half the price of Hop-On.
Most mobile phone dealers buy phones in bulk at around £100-£150 (probably $150+ in the US) each from phone manufactures and receive the cost of the phone plus a commission from the phone network for signing up customers. The phone network makes this money back later by trapping the customer with a year's contract, line rental every month, and call costs much higher than the cost of actually providing them. Of course, the customer must think they're getting something for all this, which is why they get some free minutes every month. Pay as you go is similar, they make money with the expiry dates on credit vouchers and even higher call costs in comparison to a contract phone.
So providing a disposable phone with a limited amount of calls for $30 is economically unviable, because the whole system is geared up to not having a phone with a limited lifespan in order to recoup the cost of the phone and network infrastructure and finally make a profit with later calls.
I also don't see how they're going to do a voice recognition in a $30 phone that understands at least 10 words said in any American accent (at least) right from the first time you use it. Proper mobile phones have to sample each person's name in turn and you have to say the name again in the same tone of voice, and even this limited functionality comes in quite a pricey middle-to-high-end phone.
They could buy airtime in bulk from networks so they don't have to make their own network and they might have some mighty computer at the other end listening to everyone screaming numbers down their phones, but I still don't see how it'd be economically possible at that price, especially when they'll have to provide far more phones than other networks as the old ones will keep being disposed of.
As for those demo phones, Hop On probably bought a bunch of old phones off Cingular which were returned by their customers because the case got smashed or the loudspeaker didn't work or the buttons fell off or the customer wanted to upgrade the phone to a later model or something and stuck their plastic case on it.
So, given all that, it's probably just an exercise in disappearing to the Caribbean with lots of money.
My wife and I have ditched our previous cell phones for Tracfones. This year, I've spent ~$200 for 400 minutes of airtime - around $0.50/min (my usage pattern with my cell phone makes that a better deal than paying $420/year for unlimited minutes). So in that respect, it's comparable to the Hop-On.
On the other hand, unlike the Hop-On, my Tracfone is a real, honest-to-goodness, rechargeable Nokia (and a fairly nice one at that.) So you have to wonder at the Hop-On buisness model... provide less value than an established competitor, for the same price? I thought the dot-com era demonstrated exactly where this type of thinking would take you.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
I think we should get rid of cash, too. Law-abiding citizens can just use debit cards (and thier required national ID cards) to buy stuff. That will stop crime, for sure.
That's interesting. I wonder if the phones will simply have a main number and assign extensions to each phone (POTS NAT - hehe). Really, i'm surprised why cell phone providers haven't done this yet. It could definitely cut down on the monthly costs of phones for people who really don't care about having their own number.
Or, maybe these disposable phones simply won't handle incoming calls, only outgoing ones.
It would be kind of silly for people to memorize a number to contact you when you plan on throwing it away...
I initially was wondering if the US-based Hop-on was related to the Australian Hop-on.com.au.
The Australian Hop-On.com.au advertised for months a free Internet service on the back of Taxis, except, it never came. Here is their website, don't bother going to it, it no longer exists.
After going to the US-based Hop-on, I discovered it was in fact the same company, as their mascot was that Kangaroo, the same cartoon character that appeared on the Australian taxis.
So, this didn't really surprise me to hear that their promised disposable phone was a fake after all.
--jquirke
According to www.budweiser.co.uk, there are only
25 winning bottles or cans that contain the "transmitter". Other winners are just peel off labels or pull-tabs.
Since each of the 25 prizes consists of roundtrip tickets to Japan, four nights' hotel, and tickets for two FIFA World Cup games, the cost of the electronics is trivial.
-l