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Modu Unveils Modular, Transformer-style Phone
An anonymous reader writes "A company called Modu has come up with an innovative take on a mobile phone. Instead of giving you the finished product, you get a base unit and a choice of 'sleeves', which you can plug the base unit into and turn it into a variety of devices. "If, for example, you're going out clubbing, you can pop it into a fashion sleeve with a fancy design. If you're on a business trip and you need a phone with a Qwerty keypad and large screen, you just have to pop it into a 'jacket' with those features." There's also the option to plug it into a satellite navigation device or even a car stereo. While it seems like an interesting system, I wonder whether modular devices are better than buying standalone products or all-in-one products?"
Me to have a QWERTY keyboard without having a camera (no camera phones at my job), then I'll buy one. As would a lot of my co-workers, since they aren't springing for us to all buy Blackberries.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Sleeves for personalizing gizzmos is about as old as forever. Even God has sleeves so he can appear in different forms.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
would certainly NOT want to bump into a Decepticon on the dance floor.....
Monstar L
Anybody know if this is an open design? If there is support for third parties to develop and sell sleeves without heavy licencing limitations it might be interesting. Otherwise it will probably go the way of betamax - overtaken by cheaper, more widely supported alternatives.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
it's a giant sim card?
isn't all that possible with moving a sim card from phone to phone?
do we really need the intermediate step? I know people who move their sim from a sleek 'heading out' to a pdaphone.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
... it's called a SIM card.
I think they already came out with this a long time ago. It's called a SIM Card.
I, for one, welcome our new karma-whore sig writing overlords
I'd think that short-range wireless. bluetooth,zigbee,UWB would reduce the need for "sleeves"?
I would love to have something like "transputer" - it would be CPU with huge memory (10GB+) and I could plug it into phone doc. paltop/GPS dock or PC dock (with extra powerful CPU) with large monitor or notebook dock. Have Linux everywhere, have similar environment everywhere ...
Truly "transported computer". Same data, used in different ways...
A core phone should be as small and sexy as possible - like the iphone or razor (in its past life). Small is good while maintaining as much functionality as possible. This is clearly the trend. On this core device various extensibility options must exist. For example larger batteries, external keyboards, handfree kits, 'bling' headsets, cool cases etc. Again this trend already exists and is being built on various dock connectors, including usb, and wireless mechanisms like bluetooth.
This Modu thing is just a gimick -- they're marketing the existing trend as 'innovative'.
.....you're going out clubbing....Unless 'going clubbing' means taking a +1 Club of Awesomeness, this particular example is worthless to the
Okay, this is an interesting presentation on the idea of a modular device.
In some sense it is not as much about having a modular mobile phone as much as having a modular personal preference/identity device. Something that you can carry with you and use in a variety of different roles that can store/present your personal preferences/media/data/identity (celluar subscriber ID).
However, I would like to see some usability studies. For instance, the video presents the idea of inserting a Modu into the car stereo. Neat, but... so, I am about to go 'clubbing', so I am bringing my fancy-pants Modu sleeve along. I get into the car, and I am expected to remove the Modu and stick it into the stereo. When I get to the destination, I am expected to remember to remove the Modu from the stereo and put it back into the sleeve. Or, say, I plan to go from work to a club, so I am expected to carry around the extra sleeve that I am not using at the time? A pocket full of useless sleeves?
Neat idea, but a wireless implementation would be far superior, I think. Forcing the user to remember to swap sleeves around, remember to not accidently leave the Modu in a laptop, the car, etc. sounds ripe for a bad user experience.
Wouldn't it be easier to just move a SIM card to the current necessary device?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Modular systems are nothing new.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I already have this. It's called a SIM card. If I am going out on the town and want to have a small compact phone I put my SIM in my Razr. If I am going to work or traveling and want a PDA I put it in my HTC Wizard.
What is the benefit of this, other than the fact that they want me to likely spend as much on a "sleeve" as I do for a complete unlocked phone on eBay?
will it ever be released in the US? I like the idea but I have a feeling that we will never see if like all ther other good phones out there.
Oh, like an iPAQ sleeve? The original Compaq iPAQs were the size of a smartphone, but had sleeves which could add a compact-flash socket, or GPS receiver, or PCMCIA slot, or dual PCMCIA slot, or dual CF slots. No reason why you couldn't have a very small cellphone, without camera, stereo speakers, flipphone, etc, and add those features via a sleeve.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
(My old one with the rotary dial is difficult to use with calling cards.)
This message will self destruct in 20 seconds.
Check out the last picture:
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39029453,49295452-4,00.htm
I want one of those Boom buttons for my work keyboard. Maybe every time I hit it the whole building shudders under a big BOOM... Would be a fun way of getting rid of the loud people talking in the hallway in front of my door...
1, 2, 3, 4, 5... That's the combination on my luggage!
So this is all neato and the capabilities at this point are only limited by your imagination.
The thing that will be the deal-breaker is going to be the price. Having separate pieces will drive up the costs of the subassemblies, in turn driving up the price to the end user. And the majority of the market for cellphones is based primarily on price (hey sorry, the truth is that's what the majority of people do). And with the high price will come low volume/quantities which will exacerbate the cost problem.
Does everything you want.
Small, sleek, attractive, qwerty keyboard, camera, microSD slot, plays mp3s & video, strong audited end-to-end encryption, great management tools, well-documented, lots of applications and SDKs freely available.
Admittedly, doesn't have cool ads on TV, but that's the only downside.
But is it interactive-odular?
Will it blend?
Pancakes. Oh I blew it.
Cell Phones in Disguise? Decellicons, transform!
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
Lots of people here denounce this technology because "we already have SIM cards." Therefore, no new technology must be developed? No alternative technologies in use in the world should see improvement?
CDMA phone users don't care about SIM cards. If this technology were available on a CDMA phone, I could see it catching on. Especially since there is no good way to move data between CDMA phones and no standard across manufacturers.
OK, so "If, for example, you're going out clubbing, you can pop it into a fashion sleeve with a fancy design. If you're on a business trip and you need a phone with a Qwerty keypad and large screen, you just have to pop it into a 'jacket' with those features." makes it a "modular, Transformer-style phone".
Does that mean that if I start out in my underwear (the "base unit") and then, if I'm going out clubbing, I put on some fashionable clothes, possibly incorporating fancy designs, then later go on a business trip wearing a suit and tie, plus maybe pop on a wristwatch for some extra functionality, does that make me a "modular, Transformer-style human"?
Ericsson did this with their line of phones in the early 2000's. You could snap on an MP3 player, keyboard, and FM radio, or a bluetooth chip. Now however, except for the keyboard and in some models, the FM radio, everything has been integrated into the phone.
Think of it like a cell phone PC Card that can plug into a variety of host devices.
;-)
I'm not sure where people got the idea that this phone-gadget was like an oversized SIM card. A SIM card is basically a low-capacity flash-memory card with keys for identity and encryption. This device is basically an entire cellphone, which I understand is functional all on its own at a basic level. The closest thing to this is the W-SIM card which is a SIM with a cellular transceiver welded to its back, but even that lacks the processing power and user-interface that could make it a phone in and of itself.
I think that you clue in even more than these Modu people do though in mentioning "cell phone PC Card". I'd LOVE to have a basic wireless phone device that was in a PC Card form factor. There are "cellular modems" already out there, but it'd be great if you had one with, say, a gig of flash, embedded processor, a 16-key dial pad, a minimal LCD display (just enough for caller ID or to see what you're dialing) and a small battery (removable if possible but not required--Apple solders in batteries on their i-things after all).
A standalone-capable "PC Card cellphone" would be quite appealing without any add-ons as a low-cost phone for basic communications--something my mum would like as all she does is place and receive phone calls. Then you could sell a "RAZR-style" dock in which you could latch your PC Card phone that consisted of a larger full-sized display, a camera and perhaps added battery capacity. The logic to drive the display and a simple camera would be relatively low-cost.
The PC Card form factor would make the possibilities very compelling--you could have this functional stand-alone phone that could slide into your laptop's PC Card slot, transforming it into a combination flash-drive and wireless modem, with the basic phone capabilities still available via a PC application (check your voicemail through your soundcard, do text messaging direct through the phone, etc). Finally, you could have an "EEE PC-style" dock, in which the PC Card phone itself was the processor (actual brains of the computer) but the dock supplied a cheap, sub-notebook form factor just like the EEE PC with similar keyboard, display, battery, extra memory, etc.
I'm surprised how the vast majority of people dismissed this "modular phone" concept right out of hand as being stupid and made redundant by SIM card technology. It ISN'T a SIM card--you'd but a SIM card INSIDE one of these things to activate it. I think the concept is very sound; it's just the proprietary form-factor that makes for a flawed execution.
(hopefully there isn't a patent on this concept--if one is filed from this point on I'd make note of this discussion thread as part of the prior-art on the idea
Sounds more like the Swatch watch of phones, to me.
Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
Modu's website - Featuring a 'stay tuned' footer and a promo video montage of disorienting close-ups! (click the "Modu It" button)
The article that I got the link from also has a picture of their CEO showing off the base unit: Modu to launch tiny phone 'module'
-- Joren
Why not just have a black-box "communcations device?" Something that can sit in your pocket, purse, backpack, whatever and just offer bluetooth services to a variety of devices. Have a handset if you want one, a graphical display if that suits you, or any other device that can communicate via bluetooth to your hidden communications device? Yea, you'd need to charge everything up separately, but so what? You'd get a hell of a lot more functionality out of the modular devices. And network flexibility as well.. if you like your handset, great, you can use it with any type of blackbox (WiFi/VOIP, 3G/Cellular, the new 700Mhz bands) you want, and you just don't have to worry about portability.
At least, that's what I'd love to use.
... OS X?
Get an iPhone and be done with it. Look shit.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I have one of those. It's called a SIM card.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
BORING!!!
I don't even know why I check slashdot anymore. This post deserves -5 you know it.
With interchangeable cases for Nokias?
Is called Dov Moren http://www.eetimes.com/disruption/profiles/moran.jhtml who is the man behind, among other things, the Disk On Key.
This has been his top secret project for the past 2.5 years. I think that there are great things to expect from it (and no, I do not work at Modu).
Cellular, modular, interactive-odular...
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
This phone will be a fantastic product, where people will be able to simply and easily link their mobile connection to all kinds of innovative products created by the community and the market! The wky is the limit!
Unless for some reason they make all the standards for building the jackets proprietary and unavailable to the public... but a cell phone company would NEVER do that!
Here's great modu demonstration video, if you haven't seen it yet... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-NAIA1iyCQ It really needs to be seen to fully understand how small the device really is! Convergence is the future of mobile!