Nokia Shows Off Phone with Printable Faceplate

jonknee writes "Nokia is prepping a new phone that one-ups all the other attempts at face plates... you can print your own! Just place one of the template pages it comes with (you can buy more) into your ink jet, and make a nifty design that isn't mass marketed at every mall this side of the Mississippi. The template is perforated so you can get a nice fit around the keys. The phone looks pretty nifty as well: camera, flashlight, FM radio and about everything else." It might be fun to rename someone's keys as a practical joke, not that I've ever done it to anyone's computer keyboard.

Comments

It does so much...

[typobox43]

But can you actually make phone calls with it?

Great

[jabbadabbadoo]

So I shall print out my girlfriend with the great body, but ugly face. A face that will be covered by the display :-)

Re:Great

[Trigun]

if you can video conference with it, you'll have to explain to you boss why you're laughing every time he calls you.

Not Exacty

[Linux Ate My Dog!]

I believe you can't actually rebadge the keys, the template has holes punched out that fit around the keys, much like Nokia's faceplates for the current phones.

SO you actually don't see that much of your design on the front -- it is all keys and screen -- but a lot of it on the back.

Off topic, but ...

[grokBoy]

... I recall hex editing someone's keyboard mappings (Windows) so that the misplaced keys still generated the correct letters.

Hours of fun, especially for touch typists =)

Re:Off topic, but ...

[sonicattack]

Yes, I did a similar thing when I attended a computer course years ago. Xmodmap can be fun if you gain access to another user's X server. One of the guys in the front of the classroom got bewildered trying to surf the web with some of the most common keys subtly transposed.

Shifting keys around as a joke reminds me of another story too, a bit more interesting.

Some guy called his network admin and asked for help with a "password problem". It seemed as he could log into his account when sitting down on the chair in front of the computer, but if he tried to log in standing up (!), he would get a "wrong password" error. The admin asked for the password and tried it himself. Sure enough, when he sat down, the system would let him log. When he stood up and tried logging in with the same name and password, no go. Now this is not the usual kind of problem you run into. So he checked if there was some kind of interference, like some cable being shifted when anyone stood up from the chair, but he couldn't find any such thing.

It turned out that someone, as a joke, had physically transposed two keys on the keyboard. Now, how could this cause the problem? Well, both the guy with the account and the admin were touch typists, and sitting down, they didn't need to look what keys they pressed. But standing up, they had to peek at the keyboard to get the keys "right". Which they didn't, of course.

Now I can't remember where I heard this story first (Slashdot?), and I've most certainly not remembered all the details correctly, but admit it's a cool story nevertheless! :)

Re:Off topic, but ...

[rasteri]

A similar story -

I once changed around the number keys at the top of the keyboard so that they went 0123456789 instead of 1234567890... it took the IT support staff weeks to figure out what was going on :)

Pictures

[KillerLoop]

Just in case anybody is interested how this thing actually looks:
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,42298,00.html

Faceplate revenue

[tessaiga]

There's specs and some more PR stuff on the 3200 from the Nokia site.

Sounds like something that'll catch on with the younger crowd; I'm surprised that no one else has done it yet. On the other hand, faceplates are a big business with that same demographic, so maybe no one's tried it because they'd rather make you pay to customize.

Inkjet + cell phone == problems?

[JessLeah]

Does the ink run? Holding a cell phone in your hand on a hot day is a recipe for running ink... as is drinking a glass of water next to the phone and touching the glass to the phone accidentally. Is there some sort of lamination or waterproofing provided? Otherwise, I don't think the printouts will last too long in "real world" use.

Re:Inkjet + cell phone == problems?

[gl4ss]

i dunno how often you get water INSIDE your phone.. but that's not usually a problem for me.

it looks like the plates go under the plastic covers rather than staying on the the top(heck, if you just want that then you can print your own covers now and glue them on the phone).

Interesting

[Timesprout]

That mobile phones, one of the most useful applications of technology ever are so ubiqutious they are now practically being treated as fashion accessories rather than technology.

Maybe I'm just tired

[Henry V .009]

If I had heard about this any place except Slashdot, I would have assumed that the intended market for this product was 12-year-old girls. I had to re-read the article twice to confirm that there really wasn't anything at all interesting about this phone. News for Nerds? What the hell?

Re:Maybe I'm just tired

[Mulletproof]

Teenage girls are what drive the cellphone economy in Japan...

Issue with the phone

[phoxix]

While I was looking at the Phone.

I thought to myself: How on earth am I supposed to dial with those keys?

Am I the only one thinking about this ?

Good news

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can keep my vi cheatsheet with me wherever I go.

Changing keyboards

[freeweed]

Many, many moons ago the place I worked at had a computer tech with a bizzare sense of humor.

Every year in December, he'd replace the boss' keyboard's L with a J key. We'd ask him why, and he'd say "because this way you now have a Christmas keyboard".

"Huh?"

"No L".

*cymbal crash*

no bluetooth?

[viniosity]

From the article:
Integrated camera Polyphonic ringtones Customized contact list (images and ringtones) Integrated flashlight FM radio IR JavaTM
Why is it Nokia will release phones with all sorts of 'features' like a radio and a calorie counter, but can't give us more phones with bluetooth? I know they have a couple, but for the US market the offerings are pretty slim unless you want to carry around the big (by today's standards) 3650. IR isn't dead but it should be.

phone keys vs calculator, PC numeric keypad

[lplatypus]

It might be fun to rename someone's keys as a practical joke, not that I've ever done it to anyone's computer keyboard.

Yeah, similarly I could put the phone's number keys the same way up as the keys on my calculator and the numeric keypad on my computer keyboard, with "7 8 9" up the top instead of "1 2 3" up the top.

Does anyone know why phones' keys are upside down compared to a computer keyboard and a calculator?

Re:phone keys vs calculator, PC numeric keypad

[jfengel]

The Straight Dope took a crack at the question: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mphonedial.htm l.

To quote the conclusion: "Basically, calculator keypad design evolved from cash registers, while telephone keypad design evolved from the rotary dial. Tradition has kept them that way ever since."

maybe...

[mblase]

News for Nerds? What the hell?

What if the submitter had suggested a custom faceplate showing Natalie Portman, naked and petrified, eating a bowl of hot grits?

Keys

[spoonist]

What's up with Nokia keypad layouts, anyway?

Go here and look at some phones.

The 3650 are in a circle. I gave up rotary dial decades ago, I don't want to be reminded.

The 3510 is like a spider web or something.

The 8910i doesn't have any keys at all! (Just kidding... I know they're under a cover.)

This 3200 looks like it doesn't have enough keys.

The 2100 looks like a smiley face.

With all these funky keys, how does Nokia expect me to dial a freakin' phone while I'm driving my SUV at 90mph in the right lane eating two cheese burgers and a Coke?

Re:Keys

[tessaiga]

With all these funky keys, how does Nokia expect me to dial a freakin' phone while I'm driving my SUV at 90mph in the right lane eating two cheese burgers and a Coke?

If you've actually mastered talking with your mouth stuffed full of 2 cheeseburgers and a coke, I'm sure that the dialing part will be relatively easy :)

Real features

[Aliencow]

What I want in a phone, and no phone seems to have it yet, is some kind of public key system that encrypts the data. You would have your two keys, and you could send your contact info + public key to someone else. When they call you, it enrcypts all the data both ways..
But that's probably cause I'm a terrorist...

Looks good but

[$exyNerdie]

Even though this Nokia phone looks good but I would spend my $$ on this one:

Handspring Treo 600 Getting Closer

The story behind it's design

More images

Another image

More info on how it will look like

Treo 600 in Europe next week?

Future Phones/PDA's

Apple did it already

[rufo]

Apple's PowerBook 1400 did it already with the BookCover. There's a removable clear plastic cover (they also included one of grey plastic in case you didn't like the idea) that slides off the top part of the laptop, and underneath you can put any appropriately shaped piece of paper. It even came with templates pre-installed on the hard drive so you could design something to place there. Was kind of a cool idea, but it didn't really take off, as one can easily see.

Bluetooth

[TummyX]

No thanks. I use a bluetooth headset and connect my phone to my notebook using bluetooth.

Until Nokia stop being total wankers and resume support bluetooth on their phones I'm not buying one -- no matter how many "features" it has.

People have been abandoning Nokia like hell because they've stopped making "professional" products. I mean, who wants an FM(!) radio (!) over bluetooth?

Once every 100000 times, this backfires

[sstory]

It might be fun to rename someone's keys as a practical joke, not that I've ever done it to anyone's computer keyboard.

Joke would be on you if you did this to someone like me who types on a QWERTY keyboard but with the OS set to Dvorak. They probably wouldn't notice the renaming.

more info with high res picture

[huphtur]

since phonescoop.com seems to be down, here is another site with more info about the phone.

I just moved

[mesach]

I got tired of having the mall I goto have the same stuff this side of the Mississippi, I wanted something unique so I moved to the other side of the Mighty Mississip, and now there are LOTS of things I can get and a printable face plate was one along time ago...

You really should think about moving.

Why not a BG monitor for diabetes?

[Linker3000]

Strangely enough, I've just posted to a diabetes newsgroup on this...

Having a mobile phone with a built-in blood glucose meter would be a real useful thing, especially since the number of people with the disease is growing at an alarming rate.

Imagine what could also be done--you could IR, bluetooth, USB or phone in your results to your computer or an online data store or your docs. If your BG indicated a possible hypo or hyper attack you could press OK to dial one or more numbers for assistance, or the phone could be pre-programmed to automatically dial for help if you did not hit NO/Cancel within, say 10 seconds. With calendaring and alarms, the phone could also remind when it's time to take medication.

As a type 2 diabetic, I have to carry a meter around with me that's about the same size as a mobile phone, so having the two integrated would be great.

Re:Why not a BG monitor for diabetes?

[Linker3000]

Interesting feedback. I did come across this paper whilst researching the subject - essentially it's a phone/meter linked together to forward results for analysis and feedback, but it's not a single, integrated unit. Research sponsored by Vodaphone (UK) with trials supposedly started in July 2003.

80s flashback

[Zarathustra.fi]

This "innovation" reminds me of the Mattel Intellivision game console from the 1980s. Take a look at the front page of IntellivisionLives.com - you can see the plastic faceplate on one of the controllers.

Now that I think about it - the controllers have a very phone-like interface. I wonder where the Nokia engineers got the idea.. ;-)

It is anti-theft

[spectrokid]

Best theft protection ever: just put the goatse guy on.