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

That boring "vision thing"

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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!