Japan Launches 'Buddha Phone'

CNETNate writes "The Japanese Odin 99 handset isn't a regular video-enabled phone. It's geared, perhaps somewhat ironically, towards the Buddhist geek. Aside from regular cell phone features, a dedicated button loads a private, customizable, animated altar on the phone's screen. The idea is to allow Buddhists to perform their dedications conveniently on-the-go. You can simulate incense burning, purification rites and play music to help you meditate wherever you happen to be. The question is, does such a device somewhat negate the values a Buddhist would stand for?"

Comments

A Jewish version

[sageres]

As a Jew, I am supposed to pray three times per day, so thanks to the collections of programs like these: (http://www.pilotyid.com/hebrew-texts.php) -- I now pray from my Treo. Beats carrying a book around with me. Except for Shabboth of course, when we are not allowed to use a phone. But I found that lots and lots of people are doing it, and hey -- just like the printing press invention revolutionized publication of religious literature around the world, from Bible to Koran and Talmud, the same way the technology revolutionizes an aspect of religion, that one hundred years from now we'll look at as a standard practice... And who knows what other inventions will revolutionize it farther?