Cell phones as Credit Cards

ante_up writes "We should have known this was coming. Business Week reported that Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. (DCM ) is vamping up their cell phone technology. First they added a debit card facility and now are expanding to full credit card capability. What else can you add to a cell phone?"

Comments

razor

[brickballs]

I dont know about you all, but I could use an electric razor in mine.
Every so often im at work screwing off and I realize that I missed a spot. it'd be great to go and touch it up.

Re:razor

[brickballs]

obgliatory, now that a cellphone with a built in towel has been mentioned:

"The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value -- you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you -- daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch hiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)"

--Douglas Adams
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Don't take a picture of yourself

[yotto]

Don't take a picture of yourself in the mirror, or anybody who sees it can get your credit card number!

Alright damnit

[Epistax]

For years I've said I just want a fucking phone. I've changed my mind. If it makes me food, I'll buy it.

What will they think of next?

[msmercenary]

I discovered an awesome feature on my phone, in between the text messaging and e-mail and bluetooth and credit card and camera. It gives me the ability to hold a multimedia (voice only) conversation with another person. All I have to do is punch in some kind of locator code (similar to an IP address), and I can actually *speak* to the person.

It's amazing all of the nifty things they can pack into cell phones these days.

what else to add

[Tumbleweed]

Well, adding laser pointers to cellphones would combine the two most-irritating things about going to a movie, so, that's a good option. Perhaps a ringtone of a baby crying could be the third. And then speakerphone capability on ALL cellphones. Yes, the Axis of Annoyance(tm)!

Lessee...how about a tazer? That'd be useful for dealing with members of the Axis of Annoyance(tm). Blood sugar monitor for diabetics (though I think at least one Korean phone already has that).

What I'd _really_ like to see is the ability to make a phone go into vibrate-only mode, and make it legal in the U.S. to do so (cellphone jammers are apparently illegal here, I think). That way you wouldn't have to turn them OFF in a theatre or restaurant; it gets done FOR you. Oh yeah, that would be my #1 feature, for sure. Even more than improved call quality.