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Wearable Cell Phones Are Here
An anonymous reader writes "BusinessWeek Online just ran an article on wearable cell phones. A cell phone in a powder case? In a wrist watch? Inside your earring? Sure, why not. And these phones could make it into the U.S. in the next year."
...is in my ear. I hate telemarketers enough as-is, but to have them that close to me 24/7? I'll stick with my normal phone, thank you.
Isn't this a repost from earlier today?
i can have a pocket protector that double as a cell, i knew i wouldn't have to suffer much longer
You gotta wonder if these will be small enough to be able to be given to people as presents to spy on them. "Wow, these are beautiful earrings! Thank You!" "No, thank YOU!"
Perhaps a privacy concern for the future.
Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time.
to just tattoo a barcode on your forehead?
My Cellular Thong is already on pre-order.
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That could change soon. NTT DoCoMo, a pioneer in wireless services, is developing a technology called FingerWhisper that uses a hand's bone structure to make a wrist watch phone easier to manage and operate. Here's how it works: When a call arrives, the phone sends vibrations through the bones in the index finger. When the finger is slipped into the ear canal, those vibrations turn into voice. The technology also would allow users to dial phone numbers or send text messages by tapping their palms in certain ways. And the technology doesn't seem to pose any health risks, says a DoCoMo spokesperson.
And you thought the taco-shaped side-talking N-Gage was embarassing...
eclecti.cc
Rectally mounted PDAs? I mean, intentionally?
Aw shit... Here come those damned communicator pins. On the show, they seemed really cool. In an age with cellphones with speaker phone (or even worse, the dreaded BLEEP walkie talkies), they now seem like the rudest invention of all time. I've always thought the best compromise was an in-ear implant, but I suspect we're years away from those. Plus the three tone error message would officially hurt like hell. (We're sorry, the number you have reached has been disconnected. But, you won't hear this message because you're now deaf.)
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All those guys on the subway talking to themselves weren't crazy, they were beta testers.
Now, how about some decent service? I mean, having a phone in an earring is great, but it would be nice if the damn thing worked half the time. Maybe if they spent some money on the damned plans and cell towers, instead of on the latest new candy coated pice of crap phone id be impressed.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
There were reports on The Register, concerning wearable media: Motorola Showcases Watch Phone and Unix on a wristwatch. How important is functionality on your arm to the general public? Note, on your arm it becomes useable with only one hand. How much info could realistically be displayed, and how functional would a phone in a watch actually be?
All those sci-fi shows show people talking at them in the style of a video - where is the privacy? It's all well and good when you're on Omnicron-8, but on the train, heading towards Slough, it's going to be a bit of a piss-take.
Gimme the 6600 any day, I don't care if it is a brick, I can get my fist-like fingers to press the buttons!
Thieves may now start ripping off peoples' earrings hoping to nab a cellphone.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
Now only if they could make wearable clothes...
I'm pretty sure that the technical improvement, the result of pumping millions of dollars on research, didn't end up in "aaah, just stick it in a leatherette pouch and put your belt through it..."
Weren't phones meant to talk ?
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
Just wondering, because I've seen bumper stickers like this:
"Would you drive any better if i shoved that cell phone up your ass?"
John Kerry is a Joke!
then when u feel like punching the lights out of some a-hole who doesn't practice cell-phone ettiquette, u bust their lip and their phone....two birds with one punch.
"Can I borrow your phone? I need to make a really important call!"
"Sure!"
*Removes phone from ear*
"Uh.... never mind..."
"I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
Just what I need, more people making those stupid thumb in the ear "I'll call you" signs.
The author has evidently little knowledge of Star Trek!
Is it just me, or do these articles seem less exciting WITHOUT PICTURES?
From the article..."A phone stitched into clothing or wrapped around a wrist could allow women to forego a purse."
That must be some damn good phone for a woman not to need her purse...I guess it also holds tampons, 5 lipsticks, lube, etc.
I think this discovery is very exciting - imagine the possibility of putting gentoo linux on one of these devices!
wear them and fry not only your brains, but also your heart and liver
Like we don't have enough moving hazards out there on the streets as it is. Now we're going to have women putting on makeup AND talking on the phone at the same time? Lord have mercy on us all.
Doesn't this strike anyone else as pretty, well..useless?
Cellphone in a wrist-watch? How do I dial a number when I want to make a call? Or did someone suddenly decide the caclulator digital watch was a good model to follow?
Or is there some attachable keypad you use to dial the number? Wait. You mean like a current phone and some handsfree earpieces, a speakerphone, or even a bluetooth headset?
Inside ear-rings? Sorry, but I've seen the photos of that corporate executive lady who spent three or four hours on her cell every day. Nice cancerous ring around the ear section of the skull.
--
The last digit of pi is four.
I think the subject line is kinda all I had to say.
Other wearable technologies coming soon: *Thigh mounted popcorn popper *Foldable stomach mounted TFT screen for my ass mounted, slim line nix box. *Bicep Juicer
If that's possible we must really live in the future. A phone in your car that doesn't require you to actively touch. Wow. What will they think of next? A phone that doesn't need a cord?
... because the F*cking Communications Commission would have to approve it. We all know it takes forever for that to happen. I can already hear them screaming - NO YOU CAN'T!!! YOU'LL BE CLOGGING UP THE EARWAVES!!!
Anyone else bored with designers trying to sell us their "visions"? What happened to asking people what they want and then making that cheaply and well?
(I guess this would eliminate 75% of the mobile phone industry at a stroke, no more 3G, WAP, MMS, UMTS,... just free SMS and cheap voice)
Mobile phones...? OK, here is what _I_ would like to see:
1. Cheap, cheap, cheap. The damn things get lost and stolen too easily. If they cost $25 that'd be OK.
2. Pretty in pink. Make them colored, even better, make it possible to print phone sheaths on an inkjet. Why the boring grey?
3. Standardised: one single battery standard for all phones. One single micro plug for all phones. One single power supply for all phones. One single range of car kits, etc. Let's see Nokia and Sony-Ericsson and Siemens define a new standard "base" that frees us from having to keep separate chargers for each and every phone we buy. (Nokia has done this for its own phones, but that's not enough)
4. Extensible rather than overpackaged. If I want a digital camera, MP3 player, PDA, let me add this to the phone. It'd be a lot easier if mobile phones had standard connections and some kind of docking system.
Let me propose a new, radical design for mobile phones. First replace SIM cards with "core" modules that are the size of a phone battery pack. These cores conform to an industry standard and have the SIM card embedded in them, along with the bulk of the GSM electronics.
The core can then be "sheathed" with anything from a $2.50 cover that provides just a keypad and headset jack, to a $2500 cover covered with diamonds.
The development of a standard core will allow the cost to come way down and spawn an entire industry of add-on manufacturers, which is where the mobuile phone industry will make money again.
Now if I, a simple Slashdotter, can come up with a plan to revolutionize the mobile phone industry, either I'm a genius, or the experts reviewed in this article are bumbling idiots, or both.
Now I need another coffee. Make way!
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And these phones could make it into the U.S. in the next year.
Holy crap! You mean they have been in Europe for the last couple of years?
The idea of putting a finger in your ear would improve audio quality, would it not? I mean, when you plug your ear with your finger, it blocks out everything but low frequency sounds for the most part. Couldn't that make conversations, even in loud places, quite feasible?
Just a little sidenote: what answer is that stupid guy expecting to his question? "Nope, can't hear you now." That's like saying "Whoever's not here, raise your hand." or "Are you asleep?"
-Dizzle
"I most likely AM so interested in myself."
The problem is that people just don't have any problems using a phone. We don't need these new little gagets. I love a new piece of tech as much as the next guy, but only if it's useful. These strike me as a gimmicky little idea whose uselessness will soon be apparent.
I think somebody already has prior art:
Wearable cell phone
With all of these tiny cell phones and people broadcasting their lives to the world as they talk, I'll have to wear my iPod all of the time just to be polite and respect their privacy! Oh well, at least I won't be able to hear the panhandlers...
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
The FCC needs to require all cellular carriers to activate any phone that meets the technical standards for their network.
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oh.. *pant* *pant* *pant* sorry.. *pant*pant* wrong number... *click*
Suchethalearn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
Oh, it's too true, painfully true...
When the show me a phone thats the size of a watch but as easy to use as my Sony Ericsson P900 - I'll take notice - until then this tech is restricted to rabid first adopters and Star Trek fans. 20% of Mobiles by 2007 - hell we're not all that foolish ya know.
My Portfolio
There are few benefits of middle aged deafness, but this is one of them.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
This is a MAJOR problem with privacy, these things are so small you could slip them into a handbag or wallet even and record an entire conversation, and if they have the SUPA COOL video FONE then the Ped's will go ballistic. Screw small phones, i lose mine enough as is. Respec.
when will you tech boys learn? I have dozens of pairs of earrings! Now supposing I switch to the earring phone: this means I have to buy dozens of phones! And they'll still be dodgy looking if current phone design is anything to go by. So when I go out, I wear my ordinary earrings, and now I have to carry a phone anyway. More phones! Any wearable technology suffers from this limitation: I have 3 watches, 7 handbags and even a couple of wallets. Oddly enough, since I practically live in my Mary Janes, perhaps a shoe phone is in order...? "Hello.. Chief?"
*#*#*#*#*#******* I love peanut butter sandwiches!
Come on, think about how much ass this kicks. Now I can fulfill my Solid Snake fantasies. In all seriousness, this wouldn't look anywhere near as bad as the side-talker. By the time the technology has developed enough for the consumer market it would probably be enough to just place it over the aural opening, one wouldn't have to shove their finger in up to their first knuckle.
When people get their etiquette together, I'll welcome this . . . but I'm not looking forward to being abused on the train/bus in the restaurant with information about who fired who, and which exec is visiting his mistress every night. And it's not like the ones of us that are guilty are gonna check into an etiquette clinic.
Maybe now I won't feel so weird about using my Sports Illustrated shoe phone.
http://www.commaecho.com
The Sanyo TS41 does this since some time ago. It has a "speaker" that you place on your skull (not necessarily near the ear) and allows you to hear the phone even on very noisy places. In fact that's what the TV commercial was focusing on.
:)
There's an article (in Japanese) with very funny photos here.
My site
Reliance Infocomm a CDMA cellular provider from India has introduced one such wearable CDMA based mobile phone Telson TWC 1150. This mobile is also supported by Supports unique RUIM Card that can be used in a GSM handset for International Roaming.
So with that 'phone you can't even balance the headset your shoulder to free you hand.
Think about it: how often during normal calls do you take you hand away from the headset for a minute to pick up a pen, or type something, or steer the car... With this wonderful technology your hand becomes part of the telephone and must be dedicated exclusively to the 'phone for the duration of the conversation.
Hell, you can't even switch hand, transferring the headset from one hand to the other.
A cool technology that is just not useful.
Neural interface ala Deus Ex's JC Denton and Bullfrog's Syndicate. Then you can hijack people's motor functions and run 'em into walls all day. Persuade-a-tron here we come....
(They have done this with cockroaches)
A cell phone in a powder case? In a wrist watch? Inside your earring?
First 'Dick Tracy' Reference Post!
A cell phone in a powder case? In a wrist watch? Inside your earring?
In your jeans! In your cheeseburgers! In your Nutty Buddys! Cellphones are EVERYWHERE!
Michael J. Fox has no cell phone in him...
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
You mean like THIS one for $399.99? I misplaced the manual for my Casio CFX-200 scientific calculator watch a few days ago and in the process of looking for a manual on the web, I ran across the Ebay advertisement above for one of those 80's calculator watches. To the best of my knowledge, no one has manufactured a scientific calculator watch (try finding one!) since Casio made the CFX-200. Mine is serial number 579857. :-)
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
He had a shoe phone all those years ago and people could always tell him as "the agent with the shoe phone". Well now everyone has shoe phones so all the agents will have them. It just took all these years to catch on, he was a man ahead of his time :)
So all of you go watch reruns of Get Smart again keeping in mind that you too can have a shoe phone just like Agent 86. I don't think it was a cell phone though, but it was the first wearable phone I ever saw and it was pretty cool for coming so early.
I wonder what other technologies dreamed up as fiction in the old days are reality today that we take for granted.
*Can I borrow your phone?*
*Uh Yeah, here you go*
"Sorry about that Chief."
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
Wearable phones are an attempt to answer that request from users. Yes? And the "vision" is when the designers try to figure out how to do it.
Your general "standardised" and "extensible not overpackaged" points are what you'd call "creative tensions" across basically all technological markets. (MSWord/PDAs/digital cameras are overpackaged, should be more extensible in features or software -- you could say it about products in most niches.) Meeting a price point is pretty obvious. And skinning has been around for many years, especially in phones which were among the first products to get that idea.
Your "core modules" would be roughly analogous to asking computer manufacturers to all use the same motherboard configurations or graphics cards. The problem's the same sort of leapfrogging standards one we see in basically everything. The business model could work if you wanted to try to take the low end of the market, assuming you could get enough accessory companies to support your first core module release. It's not gonna get supported across the entire market; Motorola isn't going to shut down its plants and make the same chips as someone else. They all view their proprietary models as a competitive advantage, to start with. In two years whatever standard we've all locked into will be unable to support whatever (granted, lame) new accessory people are apparently willing to buy, God bless their little consumer-confidence-boosting souls. And someone's going to want to make a killing on that (granted, stupid) high-end of the market.
When you get the phone industry to buy into this, though, talk to someone about GE's Autonomy 'skateboard' base for cars. The base of the car can take a wide variety of flavors on top. Think Toyota will want to go into the business of selling accessories for GM's chassis?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I want a cellphone/butt plug combination!
Wow, I've been waiting for this since the 1980s. Just pull my left wrist up toward my chin and speak loudly into my watch: "KITT, I'm in trouble!"
Can you be a Luddite and a programmer too? You see I do not own a Cell Phone. I don't want one. The very idea that people could call me with a reasonable expectation of reaching me 24/7 is abhorent. I don't like talking to people on phones in the first place. Hey, maybe it is not the technology but the people that is the problem...
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Wearable phones? That's so 2003. I recently saw a street guy in Paris talking into a banana.
The phone could have vibrate mode, which would replace at least one of the heavier items from said purse.
So maybe we couldn't eliminate the purse entirely, but at least size it down a bit.
Let me tell you what that commercial REALLY means. "Can you hear me now" is what you say as you wander around the house/yard trying to get the feeble signal to actually carry your conversation. 8*) (Verizon customer in SmallTown, USA)
I prefer Wristomo, even if the watch itself seems bigger. I would hate to have some wire connected on the watch
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
Look, I just stopped wearing a wristwatch because my cell phone has a clock in it. Now you want me to stop wearing a cell phone because my wristwatch is going to have a phone in it. Make up your damn minds.
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
I actually know quite a few girls who have bought new cellphones because the old one is, well, older, and not as cute as the new design. No, the reception isn't better, and they don't use any of the bazillion extra features, but they wanted a cuter phone.
Cellphones are part of a fashion trend... I know the parent was a joke but it wouldn't be unheard of for people to buy newer phones that are "in fashion"
My only regret... is that I have... bonitis...
My only regret... is that I have... bonitis..
...uses a hand's bone structure to make a wrist watch phone easier to manage and operate. Here's how it works: When a call arrives, the phone sends vibrations through the bones in the index finger. When the finger is slipped into the ear canal, those vibrations turn into voice
..U.S. consumers, always behind the Old World in most things wireless, have been left out.
"No, I'm not flipping you off, my phone is ringing..."
The mental image cracks me up. I can't imagine walking by someone talking with a finger in their ear and not chuckling to myself. Do people actually use this stuff?
Sigs cause cancer.
Imagine the "forced disconnections" caused by slapping someone's hand away from their ear. The sheer amount of damage done to the ear alone would prevent it from reaching the mainstream without heavy frivolous lawsuits.
Also, what happens when someone gets into a car accident while using this? They could be deaf for life when their jammed-in finger gets jammed in further or even stuck permanently.
Laugh now, pay later.
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They used to call us geeks when we told them we thought those touch-pins were cool! Give it some time, and all the "in-crowders" who called us geeks will be using them. :)
I guess geeks are just ahead of their time? Bust out the pocket protectors boys, it's time for some brie and fondo
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Ask several people who didn't turn off their cell phones in movie theatres, restaurants, etc. but instead made some dismissive gesture while continuing to shout into said phone in an inappropriate place.
Purists will argue that "rectally implanted" is not the same as "worn" but as far as *I* am concerned it's poTAYto, poTAHto...
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Leaving aside a few bugs in Motorola's bluetooth implementation, it seems to me that there's not much difference between a true wearable and a phone that you never have to take out of your pocket.
Simon
of course, I wear a lot of cargo pants, and I only got the V600 because my nokia 9290 died and I couldn't get hold of a 9500, so I'm probably not a good test case
Tinfoil hat is right.
If I wear it on a string around my neck, then I'll probably get breast cancer as opposed to ear or butt cancer.
Breakfast served all day!
transduction bone mic's would be sweet
is that given this new ability to have phones built into every day items:
My understanding is that in Europe/Asia, their phones already use a SIM card or something to more easily change the number, billing etc.. So we'll want that sort of technology here to, but a SIM card seems like it may be too big for some of the applications I've heard of, but maybe there would be a central device (hopefully small and handy) to control all the other little phone devices. Earrings for speaker, watch or ring or lapell for mic. Watch or ring for dial...
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
Yeah I got a wearable cell phone. I put it in a pouch which I can wear on my belt. That's wearable, you stupid fock.
> 1. Cheap, cheap, cheap. The damn things get lost and stolen too easily. If they cost $25 that'd be OK.
:-)
That would be great for my use. They don't have to be ultra expensive for my tates... they just have to function properly and be remotely good.
> 2. Pretty in pink. Make them colored, even better, make it possible to print phone sheaths on an inkjet. Why the boring grey?
Foldable, printable phone sheaths. I think you just made a million dollars.
> 3. Standardised: one single battery standard for all phones. One single micro plug for all phones. (etc)
I agree 100%. When are hardware mfctrs gonna learn that they need to follow the w3.org in their standards for the web, over to the hardware side of things. Stop competing with competitors on style, and locking customers into service by changing the designs of hardware to make them incompatible on purpose. Just think of what it would be like if you owned the company that has all their products parts interchangable to a public standard! All the other companies would follow, much like how everyone follows Google these days.
> 4. Extensible rather than overpackaged.
With the new Microsoft skin bus, this should be easy enough to accomplish, for a high price. But still... cool enough.
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