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."

Comments

Great!!!

[Unknown Poltroon]

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.

Re:Beam Me Up Scotty

[isorox]

where is the privacy?

HELLO! I'M ON A TRAIN! I'LL BE HOME AT EIGHT!

Yeah, plenty of privacy nowadays.

How important is functionality on your arm to the general public? Note, on your arm it becomes useable with only one hand.

What functionality do you need in a phone. I rarely use my actual phone, my bluetooth earpiece has one button that answers when it rings, hangs up when I'm talking, or activates voice dial when I'm not talking. Say the name of someone and the call connects. One finger to initiate the call, one finger to end the call, just as much privacy as a normal cell phone.

A phone built into a watch would simply replace the current time with the calling name. Bluetooth means you can program it from your PDA or laptop, or some credit-card-sized keypad you can keep in your wallet.

Really, what does a phone do? The only major function I use aside from phone calls is SMS, which I'd rather do through my PDA anyway (full keyboard for starters)

Uh...

[SinaSa]

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.

That boring "vision thing"

[ites]

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!

Free and Competitive Markets

[Detritus]

It doesn't matter how cool or technically advanced a cell phone is, the wireless carriers in the United States have a chokehold on the market. They want to force their subscribers to buy their phones only from the carrier's limited list of "approved" phones. This gives the carrier's marketing drones vast power over what phones and features are available. You don't buy a phone with the features that you want, you buy a phone that may have been crippled so that it fits in with the carrier's marketing strategy.

The FCC needs to require all cellular carriers to activate any phone that meets the technical standards for their network.

fashion disaster

[RocketRainbow]

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?"