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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."
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.
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
"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
The author has evidently little knowledge of Star Trek!
This is actually one of the coolest designs for cell phones I've ever seen, and the worst thing is that they've been reporting this for years now (the oldest mention of it I can remember is from before 2000), and still no sign of it on this side of the pacific (or at least not on this side of the ecuador).
I can't wait for them to arrive here, so I can finally have an excuse to get a cell phone, and join in on the annoyance.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
... 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!!!
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."
Wow, I just bought this new cellphone that's only the size of a button and clips to your lapel... and look they give you this free screen/keyboard thingy so you can operate it... and I pooh-pooh'ed this bluetooth thing...
This might be OT, but how many people out there have access to both a GSM and CDMA phone network?
In Australia, we now have most metro areas with both networks, but for the last few years all new installations are CDMA only.
For several years I used a couple of different GSM mobiles - a cheap NEC Fido, then a top-of-the-line nokia 9110 - and on only one occasion did I ever get a call go straight to message bank when the phone should have rung.
After my 9110 connected with hard surfaces one too many times, I got a cheap CDMA phone as it offered coverage in a town where I spend a fair bit of time (one of those damn CDMA only areas).
Since then, it often goes to message bank when it should ring - most noticable when you are only a few hundred metres from the tower, or on one occassion sitting about 1.5km from a higher powered tower with a constant good signal for an hour - after which I got a phone call starting "oh, so you're answering your phone now - you weren't 5 minutes ago".
Everyone I speak to has noticed similar behaviour, and they have many different makes/models of Crappy Dodgy Mobile Access phones.
Other things - like getting the same SMS as I come into coverage for 3 days, SMS's being delivered days late, not being able to configure divert on no answer separatly to divert on out of range (that's a missing network feature btw), were also reported by the other CDMA users I spoke to.
Last week I lost the cheap CDMA, and took the opportunity to go back to GSM (we had to tell the telco this was REALLY what we wanted to do several times before they accepted we had it right)
Personally, I'm MUCH happier knowing which half of the time my mobile works now.
Does this kind of thing apply to CDMA in the rest of the world?
Yeah, I'm Japanese (born and raised) and my parents taught me to use those beveled wooden sticks to clean my ears. I don't know whether it's safe, but it feels really good. Almost as good as sex.
Of course, my people are also known for their other weirdnesses, such as a religion that believes the spirits of our dead ancestors haunt the streets picking up the shit of the living and eating it. I am not kidding.
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.
In Europe, at least, most of your wishes seem to be coming true.
:)
;). For me the next step would be to access my home network from my laptop _wherever_ I am. A Bluetooth/UMTS gateway over my cellphone could be just what I need, if the price was right...
1. Cheap, cheap, cheap. The damn things get lost and stolen too easily. If they cost $25 that'd be OK.
Yes, but only as long as you don't want MMS, UMTS, Bluetooth, etc. See below.
2. Pretty in pink. Make them colored, even better, make it possible to print phone sheaths on an inkjet. Why the boring grey?
Most phones can be bought in a range of colors and/or have interchangeable skins.
3. Standardised: one single battery standard for all phones. One single micro plug for all phones. One single power supply for all phones.
OK, chargers aren't there yet, and perhaps differences in battery technology make this difficult, but at least the data connections are becoming standardised thanks to Bluetooth. New BMWs just need the phone to be authenticated with the on-board computer and the car can then use the phone regardless of whether the phone is lying in the cradle or in your pocket.
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.
My Siemens S55 has a snap-on camera module with flash. I hate the thing, but that's just because the quality of the thing is crap and the connector is really dodgy. Again, Bluetooth could be the answer.
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.
I think your core modules are going to be too inflexible. How about we modularise things a bit more - a small standardised storage device which we can attach to various phone electronics (to allow upgrades of the electronics, or a choice between folding, compact, and larger models with more features). Battery technology is becoming flexible with regard to shape and umm... flexibility, so let's keep that free-form too, since we want users to be able to choose between tiny devices and larger devices with a longer battery life. Best would be to allow the battery to clip on the to the electronic module.
Now the people who would like a shiny, colored phone can buy the electronic module which allows the shells to be exchanged, whereas business users who don't care can go with boring grey where the integrated shell will be cheaper to manufacture.
Oh, wait... that's sounding a lot like the status quo.
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.
I can think of another alternative.
I suspect the mobile-phone market is one of the more market-driven industries out there, judging by the amount of competition and innovations we're seeing.
Personally, I've just set up my first WLAN at home and find the freedom of being able to surf/work anywhere in the house just great (but what's with the chalk marks outside my front-door?
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.
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