Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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
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!
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!
"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
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.
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.
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The last digit of pi is four.
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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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 FCC needs to require all cellular carriers to activate any phone that meets the technical standards for their network.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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
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!
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!"
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