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Wearable Cell Phones Are Here

Posted by timothy on from the disguised-as-a-car dept.

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."

9 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Tin foil hat... by cbrocious · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  2. Beam Me Up Scotty by keefey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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!

    1. Re:Beam Me Up Scotty by obeythefist · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have a smartphone. My PDA is my phone. My web browser is my phone. My camera is my phone. My MP3 player is my phone. One 266MHz device, one battery, all that functionality.

      Remember, the gist of the actual article has little to do with wrist phones per sei, rather that these devices are now small enough to be used in such a way, or in wearable clothing, purely to make them more convenient so you don't have to lug as many gadgets around with you.

      Of course if you use a PDA and a cellphone for sending SMS's, you probably fit into the 80% of people who are going to keep carrying a lot of baggage and a lot of different batteries for every gadget you have. So basically in order to have the same level of functionality you get from a single handset, you're carrying your handset, a bluetooth headset and a PDA?

      Which is fine of course, each to his own, but I'm very happy with the way convergence lets me carry all that functionality in one device.

      --
      I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
  3. Can I... by Myrmi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "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
  4. Seems like a good idea by Dizzle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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."
  5. Re:From the article by ratsnapple+tea · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  6. Part way there already by panurge · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I have artilleryman's ear, and I use an in-ear hearing aid. I use a neck microphone (under my shirt) on my cell phone with an inductive loop, so phone speech comes directly into my ear. Unlike a Bluetooth unit, the battery life is weeks. Because the hearing aid is music grade, the sound quality is vastly better than you get with the tiny speakers on cell phones. The result is that I can answer the phone and talk with no visible phone at all. I still derive minor pleasure from the shock of some people watching this madman talking to himself, but the fact is, it works extremely well. The microphone is shielded and has good noise rejection, and on the T setting I can block out external sounds and hear perfectly in very noisy environments. The one thing I would really like is an external keypad I could velcro to a jacket, or a better voice dialing system than the (frankly crappy) Nokia 6310 the company provides.

    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.
  7. Evil Phones!! by iR-Corp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  8. Is this really any better than bluetooth headsets? by Simon+Spero · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I've had people mistake my Motorola HS810 headset for jewlery before

    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