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Cell Phone On A Chip
sebFlyte writes "Texas Instruments have developed a new chip for mobiles that, according to some, should make is possible to make a cell phone for less than $25, bringing it into the realm of possibilities for low-level corporate giveaways, or a reasonable loss leader for getting people started on pay-as-you go mobile offerings."
But you don't need to sign up for a service plan to wear a watch...
I don't want to take pictures with my phone.
I don't want to play MP3s with my phone.
I don't want to check my e-mail with my phone.
I don't want to browse the web with my phone.
I don't want to play games with my phone.
I just want to make phone calls with my phone. Want to lower the average price of a cell-phone? Start with taking all of that crap out of it.
Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
The problem isn't the cost of the phone. It's the cost of the service that keeps me out of the market.
I think there's a growing population who just wants a plain cell phone now.
You know, for talking on - instead of having bluetooth, a built in camera, FM-Tuner, an internet service that costs $10/1 megabyte, pager and orchestrated ringtones.
If I could buy a new (possibly smaller, lighter, more battery-efficent) cell phone I would - but stores don't carry anything that basic. You have to spend at least $100 (CDN) for anything wihout a plan, and I'm sure the lion's share of that is going towards a colour screen and features I don't want.
Almost makes me yearn for an Apple iPhone. Does what it should, elgantly and without any extra "fluff".
Yeah, I think the real advantage here will be low power and high reliability, not in disposable phones. I mean, I can see how you would want to be able to destroy your phone every once in a while - but where is the market crying out for a disposable phone? Who's life does it improve? I think people will continue to keep their phones for about a year.
Incidently, by integrating everything on a chip they should have greatly reduced the amount of dangerous stuff - even the battery for this will probably be smaller.
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Putting a "cellphone" on a chip for $10 is not just good news for cheap "cellphones". It's great news for putting everything on the Internet, along with the simple human interface that is the 12-key pad and voice. Back through the early 20th Century, motors were big, complex, inefficient and expensive enough that motors were a separate industry. Factories used to have a single motor, like a mill or animal-driven cogwheel, its power distributed through the enterprise over pulleys, ropes and chains. Once motors became cheap commodities, simple to integrate, motors became commonplace enough to become invisible, and the motor industry was subsumed into the larger electronics and transportation industries they enable. Now that cellphones are becoming similarly mundane components, we can start to forget about them, and the era when immediate communication among people and devices required a second thought.
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