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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."
From the article:
Mobile phones contain a number of potentially dangerous substances, such as arsenic, cadmium, ZINC and lead, which can harm the environmental if the handset is not disposed of in a responsible manner.
Oh really? So, why in the world is there this incredible push to make lead-free devices, when it appears that the zinc alloys seem to be the most-likely substitute for lead?
I'm fairly green myself. The question I have is, why adopt whack-a-mole policies that are likely to replace current problems with other problems?
But how will I play games/take pictures/text my friends/browse the Internet/watch TV/cook a burrito/wash my laundry! This thing will never sell.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
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.
They folded.
Hah! I kill me.
Sweet...one step closer to Zoolander phones!
/me giggling quietly as typing this
:)
Americans, eh?
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 $100 (CDN) for anything wihout a plan, and I'm sure the lion's share of that is going towards a colour screen and features I don't want.
Almost makes me yearn for an Apple iPhone. Does what it should, elgantly and without any extra "fluff".
You can get a non-contract mobile for 19.99 (that's 35$ approx)
0 8/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002K78
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.
--
make install -not war
Here, TI is setting a low price point for the chip/chipset and cramming as much functionality as TI's engineers can force into the chip/chipset. Over time, such efforts become easier because the feature size of integrated circuits becomes smaller, and you can simply put more "stuff" into a fixed area of chip. Further, the area of the chip determines its price to a first-order approximation.
I wish that someone would do another VIC-20. For $200.00, I bet that we could get an awesome computer, but I doubt that any of the traditional companies like HP, IBM, and Sony would be interested. The profit margin would be minimal. So, these companies continue to set a high price point, say, $2000.00, and sell a system with commensurate functionality -- a lot of functionality that I simply do not need for reading e-mail and posting articles to SlashDot.
I'm not sure how it is in the rest of the world, but here in the UK I've long suspected that the whole mobile telecoms industry is "bent as a nine-bob note" (to use a local colloquialism!)
For example, looking at the phone I'd like to buy - it costs around £300 without a contract, but can be had for free on a 12 month contract costing approximately £20 to £25 per month plus calls. This suggests that a substantial portion of the contract price is subsidy for the phone. One would assume, therefore, that if I were to buy the phone outright that the airtime contract would be significantly cheaper? Well - it doesn't work like that. I'd still end up paying about the same for airtime and calls. What I feel we need far more than a cheap chip is an honest pricing policy. The whole business of subsidised handsets, IMHO stinks.
"I was an early adopter of cellphones, my first was the old flip phone."
No, no, no. I was an "early adopter" of cell phones. Mine was the size fo a VCR and came with its own handy carrying case that was bigger than my wife's purse.
Back to your point though, most cellular contracts have a backout period. I know I had 15 days with Nextel to bring my phones back if I wanted to back out of the contract. Seeing as Nextel didn't pick up at my house, I dropped them and went to Cingular within that timeframe. The Nextel salesman did tell me that I couldn't do that, but I calmly pointed out where it was written in the contract and after some arguing he gave in and cancelled our contracts. It might already be too late for you, but check your contract and see if you have a way to back out.
They should still be able to use a regular mobile service but keep a little record of numbers which are "direct-callable". Once a phone recognizes another as direct-callable, it would request whatever info it would need to establish point-to-point communications and then see whether it could reach the other. If not but other such phones were in the area, it might even ask them if they could relay the call!
Might as well add in a drop-in charging base station so that it could function as a cordless handset when in range of your home phone line, as long as I'm dreaming.
How much would you pay for a phone that knew how to "cheat" the phone company by leaving their billing system out of some calls whenever it could find a more direct route?
Every public place would become a network hub, every road a backbone...