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Disposable Cell Phones
davie writes " A patent has just been issued for what amounts to a disposable cell phone. No LCD, limited battery life, outgoing calls only. The inventor envisions these devices being sold with a limited block of air time, about 60 minutes, at a cost of about $20. Once you use up the air time, toss it. " And, hey, if it means it can be thrown in a bucket of water and you can just get a new one, that's even better!
I would hope that the phones would be recycled, rather than thrown out. As if our land fills weren't stuffed with enough potentially reusable items...
FIRST POST, YEAH
- Kill Yourself, spare us all! -
In canada you can now get phones like that which use calling cards. Kinda like that.
going for filling the landfills again huh??
I find that this is just another way of hurting the enviroment. Sound like flamebait eh? Seriously tho...this seems kinda stupid if you ask me. I mean what are they gunna make disposible next....computers? I still use 486's ect. Don't get me wrong I like fast computers (I got a P3 500) but this is just stupid if you ask me :")
FLAME AWAY!
Natas of
-=Pedophagia=-
http://www.mp3.com/pedophagia
Also Admin of
http://loki.linuxgames.com
I love this! As it is, I consider my Qualcomm 1960 "disposable" It was like $30 and I would not miss the $30 replacement of the phone itself too much if it died, what I would miss is the $50 activation fee for the new phone! If these things start showing up for $20 I'll dump my current carrier and opt for these phones. I hate paying for "plans" where I'll use all the minutes this month but none next month but need the savings the plan offers.
This could bring a whole slew of "smalltimers" into the cell phone market. Just like the phone cards you can get at the WallMart checkout brought relative nobody phone companies into the picture. Not to mention the resale potential for these things.
Brain cancer or not, cell phones rule. I've dumped my home phone completely and use only digital cell at the moment. It is a CDMA phone so I can even use it with my laptop while I'm fishing with almost no extra hardware (plugs right into the serial port, the phone is the modem. I love it!)
Fish! LipHo
You know, I don't really like the idea of disposable technology...we already have enough litter lining the highways as it is.
a prophet on the burning shore
...this could be good for the "emergency cell phone to keep in the glove compartment so if stranded in the middle of Nebraska in a snow storm you don't have to pull a Donner party" scenario.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I'd much rather use one of these, they are more environmentally safe. Both my parents have one, and are satisfied with them, and they say they have pretty good rate plans.
---
"...silence is a dangerous sound."
The article says it only does outgoing calls. This certainly won't replace the non-disposable variety.
It might be useful for non-cellphone owners who just want something handy in case of emergency, but with regular cellphones getting so cheap I doubt it'll really take off.
Hey,
Just a quick question...does anybody know what happened to hemos and his (burnt down) house ?
Packard Bell already thought of this, and for years sucessfully marketed computers which were ready to be tossed in the trash as soon as you took them out of the box.
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
Making things disposable is so silly. Stop it damn it >:|.
...wait there already are.
Just have cheap cellphones and calling cards
so the price is about $20 for 60 minutes of cellular phone time.
would it include long distance, because a disposable cellular shouldn't be tied down to a certain area.
i guess that would be completely anonymous as well.
Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts. -- Voltaire
There are several issues to consider with the disposable cell phones. Well, maybe only two. But anyway, I'll lay 'em out for you.
First of all - probably what drove the creator to make them in the first place - they're convienient as hell. You get one of those things, toss it in your car, and BOOM - instant emergency communication wherever you're at. Going on a backpacking trip? Pick one up at the store on your way out - if you get lost, you won't be without help. You're a poor college student who needs to be able to call the professor when you're snowed out somewhere? Take one with you. The creation of these makes having communication when you need it - without the hassles of signing contracts and paying outrageous bills - easily accessible.
On the other hand, they could create a waste problem. I would certainly hope that the company(ies) who market the phone would have some sort of recycling program going, so that they're just returned somewhere (like maybe the store you got it from) so they can be reactivated and resold. It would just be good business practice to do that, really - lesser manufacturing costs.
I'll admit that if I see one of these at Wal-Mart someday, and I've got some extra cash, I'll probably pick one up and toss it in my car. Never know when I might need to call someone out in the middle of nowhere, especially living in Wyoming. Excellent idea on the creator's part.
If criminals can just buy these to do a single drug deal then it would be very difficult for the police with a valid search warrant to monitor a criminals activities.
But it would make the average citizen more anonymous than in a long time.
Having stated the obvious, the sad thing is that according to the article, this woman has put "everything [she] owns" into this project. I can only hope that after it flops, she can at least eke out a living on her other inventions.
Since these phones would be very anonymous could they be hacked to give free long distance?
After that aggravating conversation with your significant other or that one-sided angry monologue from your boss, you could beat the living daylights out of your phone on the nearest tree. You would feel much better after that!
i'll belive it when i see it. this is one of those things that would be at the beginning of a bad movie in the fifties on 'popular science.' this guy's got it all wrong. disposible dishmosible. 20 bucks yeah right.
"..Constructive critizism is always welcome however."
Disposable phones, disposable computers, diapers, anything else you can dispose of.
I expect to see a Disposable Society quite soon.
What is really needed, as for as disposible phones go. Is to have one that is edible !! That way, if you get stranded, you can make a call for help, and then chow. It wouldn't go in the dump. Except that dogs would REALLY love eatting the phone then.
Cruise says"I can even use it with my laptop while I'm fishing with almost no extra hardware."
Forget the "almost". A friend has a phone with an IR port that can talk to his pilot. He dials the phone, puts it on the coffee table, and starts surfing on the handheld. The phone sure ain't disposable, though.
What's the point of buying a disposable cellphone? If you need a phone, why not just get one of the plans offered by the various phone companies? Those plans practically give away the phone in the first place. It's also a waste of silicon and plastic to make one that is only good for 60 minutes of use. If you want something you can throw away, why not just buy a prepaid cellphone? It serves the same purpose as a disposable one would, and you can get more time without having to buy a new phone, thereby keeping trash out of landfills and protecting the environment, etc, etc, ad infinitum...
The really ideal plan for planet Earth would be the following: a set of frequencies that all nations agree on (no more gsm on 1900 mhz for the us and 900 and 1800 for the rest). All the rest that is needed already exists: phones with a card that plug into it. So you can have your normal cell phone account wherever you live. And if you're travelling...you take the phone with you and you buy a prepaid card where you are. So wherever you are on this planet, you can have a cheap way of owning a cell phone, even if you're travelling...
My 1 italian pound...
Putting aside the obvious fact that this is completely daft from an environmental point of view, can this even be done economically? I've heard that a cellphone is worth about 150 pounds (240 bucks or so). So how could it be done?
Furthermore, the system now in place in Britain, called pre-pay, is far better. You buy a phone, and then buy credit in the form of scratchcards which have unique serial codes - you can then type these into the phone and this tops up the call credit. No contract, no other fees - just an increased charge to make a call. Really rather simple. And of course, more environmentally friendly.
</ADVERT>
This disposable idea sounds mad. As virtually everyone else has said.
Bah. Humbug.
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
But I don't think any regular cellphone user would want one. The high-volume customers are where all the money is at, so they practically give you the phone for free anyway. What's the advantage of having an extra-crappy disposable one that can't have any of your "personal" features? And is the inventor going to pay for the roadside-cellphone cleanup industry this will inevitably require?
Or I could be completely wrong. It's getting to be a habit with me.
These were actually in William Gibson's latest book.
You could buy the phones based on the amount of time you needed.
The point seemed to be that you could buy them out of a vending machine and they would be anonymous. (From what I hear, they sell most anything out of a vending machine in Japan, these days.)
Of course, in the book you can make and receive calls on the disposable phones. So reality still has a little way to go.
Oh these phones are SO NOT useful if I can't play Nibbles (copyright Microsoft, uh.. 1992 or something) on them.
Well seriously eh, what the heck is the point of this? Why don't they put effort into making $20 cell phones - period. Forget disposable phones, someone should put some engineering power into a lowcost phone in general with some modern features that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
It seems to me that each phone would need some sort of ID in order to place an outgoing call. What do you think? Is there an unlimited amount of bandwidth/phone ID's out there, or will I be sharing my conversations with the Happy Meal family in line next to me?
----------------------------
Her vocabulary is as bad as, like, whatever.
- Winner, "Worst Analogies" contest
i herd that thes pfones mess the brane.,, i say forr u to smok wead to hellp yur brane and stuf,; if u uses this stuuf tehn smokke waed to help yu brane be snmart yaeh!!,,,
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha
Use it then throw it away... the best idea since DIVX!
And by tha way I just wanted U to know that I have post nr 38...
(Please don't spam me (I really hope U do...))
I bet you this is the way the cell phone companies plan on continuing to rake the money in from their analog networks that are being replaced by digital ones. So instead of abandoning them, they offer cheap phones/airtime and with outgoing only, they can use their phone numbers for their digital networks. So basically it's an End of Life strategy.
I'm sure that they would try to recycle them kinda like bottle redemption... you buy a phone for $25, when you are done you buy another for $25 but you get $5 off for returning the other phone.
Not a bad idea.
Peter Gogas
I'm waiting for the phones that automatically detect if they are in a car or not, and disable themselves accordingly. Either that, or require car-phone users to post their cell numbers on the outside of their cars.- ---------------
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Power to the poeple.
Can you taste the bile?
what a fucking gross idea.
sorry, that's all.
Iain Banks had these in Against a Dark Background, which was copyrighted in 1993. Who can go me one earlier?
Of course everyone throws old nicads away anyway because very few recycling/disposal facilities can get licensed for Cd. It's really nasty stuff. But when every place in town says "We can't accept those", what else can you do? Shipping cadmium to a facility that accepts Cd is legally problematic too [shipping hazardous substances and all]. So what's left? The garbage can! Hey! I tried to do it the right way.
American society promotes enough waste as it is. Please, let the insanity stop!
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
And they don't get recycled. I knew a guy who worked at Crest photo in Burbank (they do all film dev for all vons and save-ons nationwide). They just yank the film out of disposable cams and toss the camera into the dumpster. I used to raid the bin for the cameras and tear them apart as most of the throw-away cams had two fully charged AA alkaline cells in them!
Disposable everything... Unfortunately, the environment is not disposable, and it recharges rather slowly. If the fantastic visions of the future we often discuss right here on /. are ever to come true, maybe we'd better be more careful in what we support or we'll wade through mountains of disposed cellphones and computers before we know it.
/rant{ So pray tell me, why-oh-why does this thing have to be disposable? Why not make it rechargeable? Why do these marketing-driven morons fail to learn time after time some basic truths about conservation of limited resources? Why do they only think about `bottom line' and why do they not look any further than their next management position... }
With the U.S. FBI forcing surveillance measures down the throats of cell phone users (instant wire taps and location tracking possible w/o warrent), this could be a great end-run around around these Orwellian measures. If all this surveillance hardware becomes pointless, maybe they won't install it to start with.
:)
On the other hand, Congress's response will probably be to push through legistlation requiring that all cell phone buyers show id and be registered in a database (as is becoming the case to buy a plane ticket). *sigh*
I'm already envisioning teenagers diving into trashcans at the mall trying to find a cell phone with 0:30 left in it so they can call their moms to pick them up.
Can I get a patent on my great idea for a biodegradable phone?!?
Sheesh! Someone in the patent office is asleep at the wheel. Some people in the US gov't are asleep at the wheel as well.
US patents are issued for either 7,14, or 21 years.
That might have been appropriate in the 1800's to allow somebody to profit from their idea, but in 1999, even a 7 year patent on computing products is ABSURD!
Image if I would have patented the WEB BROWSER in 1985 and the US patent office would have issued a 21 year patent -- I'd still have 7 years of my patent left.
technology patents and especially internet or computer-related patents should be looked at VERY CAREFULLY and I suggest that they should be issued for 1,2, or 3 years instead of 7,14, or 21 years.
In the meantime, all you internet patent attorneys are probably loving this, huh? (enjoy it while it lasts...)
Just think, boys and girls - a phone that can never be traced to you! Granted, it would be hard to do a drug ring with this because it won't accept calls, but big deal!
Maybe I am just being stupid, but this is worse than divx. Who in their right mind, asside from criminals and kids who want to look cool (also known as wannabes) would want one of these things? PCS service from Sprint is dirt cheap and the phones from them are like $50, and if you are really stingy you can get one from one of the other companies for one cent.
It's pure idiocy, so they will probably make a fortune off of them - just not from me.
Limit the outgoing phone numbers to parents' work, home, pager, etc, give it to your kid and don't worry that he'll lose it or abuse it.
Ideal.
------
The idea of a Use Once and Burn vector for messages is a sound one.Anonymous messaging is fast going the way of the dodo bird. This exectution though leavs a lot to be desired.
I bet ya the devices are serialzed in some way and traceable to a store. Once traceable to a store it wont be all that impossible to track a customer.
If you pay in cash that may be ok, but i bet there will be a credit card needed to buy them.
The enviro aspect is also not so hot. Better still would be a cell you could erase down to the core and have recoded. Of course this still would require, im betting, some sort of tracable transaction.
The need for this sort of thing is real, but this is not it.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Has the cell-phone craze and consumerism reached the point where cell phones are just too blasé?
Who is this market? People with such crappy credit they can't get approved for or afford a cell phone contract. They'll probably make them in various crazy colors a la iMac to get kids into it.
Patents like these really make me wonder if the ecology movement is completely dead. Faster, cheaper, and better should eventually equal out to reliable equipment that lasts a long time. Instead faster, cheap, better = disposable crap. Eventually you'll be able to buy a disposable version of any electronics you like. Imagine the landfill nightmare of having thowaway TV's, CDplayers, fax machines, etc. If this is the first wave of disposable electronics, I'll be the first to boycott.
Heh, I got a kick out of her reasons why this throw away idea will work:
"An engineer's mentality is to make
something last, to make it durable. A toy's life span is about an hour, then the kid throws it away. You get it, you play with it and -- boom -- it's gone."
Why if kids do it, it must be the smart thing to do. Or she's admitting her target market is really dumb adults.
"It's the ultimate in-your-face advertising," Ms. Altschul said.
That just says it all doesn't it?
I give up... next thing will be disposable web terminals, graciously donated to schools by Micro$pend, with 30-day licences for Win2K...
Both concepts are equally useless.
I would think that a recycling program would work fine in this program. If this caught on and you could simply pick the things up at K-Mart, Tesco, etc, you could simply take the used-up one and maybe get a $1 or $2 credit back. I'm sure the internals could easily be reused and the plastic case could be recycled.
Think of how some states have a bottle/can deposit that you get back when you recycle. Apply it here.
With this in mind, I think it's a great idea! I'd be interested in keeping one around for emergencies and special activities!
-- kraptv@skylab.org * LUDDITES UNITE. *
Yet another environmentally thoughtless idea.
Interesting concept, but i have reservations about the idea of continuing the promotion a disposeable mentality. Of course, if they have anywhere near the popularity of disposeable cameras (remember those silly things, why would someone buy a camera to throw away?) she'll make a lot of money.
also, view the full patent text here
return 0;
//(BLiP)
Vote Technocratic! Government by killer robots!
I would like to point out that we're not being "buried in our own garbage". This is largely a view promoted by environmentalists that don't understand how big the planet is, and sometimes, "just throwing it away", is the best thing to do from a environmental perspective!
I don't want to start a flamewar, and I'll probably get moderated down by an eco-freak, but please concider that when you recycle something, it doesn't magically turn into another product. It requires a LOT of energy to recycle something, and contrary to what suburban SUV-drivin feel-good people thing, power doesn't come out of the wall for free. It needs to come from a coal, hydro (which ISN'T eco-friendly - flooded land produces methane, worse for the environment than coal!) or nuclear plant. Recycling is often worse than throwing it away!
Interestingly enough, a study done in England (Referenced in American Scientific, Sigma Xi Jorunal) indicates that recycling causes _more_ consumption, since people _feel good_ about using recycled products!
This doesn't mean a throw away culture is OK - but if you need the service or product, it might make sense. There is L O T S of room for L O T S of garbage on this planet - more than we will ever need, 'cause we'll do ourselves long in based on current population projections before this is an issue.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Recycling is last, because it doesn't work very well! Why does everyone forget about the first two, which work _Really_ well. Cut down, and reuse.
Just because it's disposable, doesn't mean it's bad. It might even be BETTER. It might not feel good, though. Consuming resources is something we should think about, and I think people think sucking energy is OK just because it's being recycled, which sometimes is really dumb.
Think about that when you're haulin those bottles back in your 4 ton Ford Extrusion, er, Excursion, wasting a resource we should conserve - gasoline.
Kudos!
..don't panic
Why doesn't this guy just patent a disposible car while he's at it, one tank of gas and then dump it off a bridge! The EPA should step in and stop this one...like we need more garbage.
(Although I'm still daydream designing a battery draining machine that would fully exhaust them first, with pulse modulation, inverters, diodes, capacitors, and other fun stuff.)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
And Ms. Altschul is looking to license her "interactive cereal" --cereal sculpted into monster shapes that crumple into soggy heaps when doused with milk.
And to think I've been eating "interactive cereal" my whole like and didn't know it. Make me a cereal that DOESN'T become soggy heaps and you might have something.
"I was driving in my car, and I kept losing my cell signal, and I wanted to throw my phone out the window. And -- bingo -- I came up with the idea," Ms. Altschul said.
Here I am eagerly waiting to read her solution to losing cell signals till I realize her 'idea' is actually throwing away phones.
there will be disposable cars. you drive them for a week then throw them away. maybe they will even be suv's (the most polluting class of cars on the planet). but hey as long as American's are happy who knows how far things will go in the name of progress.
"The importance of using technology in the right way has never been more clear."
In a shocking display of ingenuity, the United States Patent Office actually patented a non-trivial concept.
Said an anonymous inside source, "We don't know what happened. We thought the patent was for some software algorithm that had been discovered two decades ago. I thought I saw internet somewhere on the proposal, but it's just not there. We really screwed this one up and from now on it's only damage control. I just hope everyone realizes this is a one time only thing. We're working hard to make sure this won't happen again."
Film at eleven.
They had a Green PC which when it served its useful life, had a case which could be taken apart with your hands and separated for recycling. The display was geared towards low power consumption -- it was one of the early colour flatpanel LCDs. IIRC, it had one of the "Blue Lightning" motherboards a 486SLC type system.
It costed around $7000.
I remember wanting it because it produced very little heat, required very little noisy cooling, had a relatively small footprint and naturally, the display was dead sharp. The recycling end of it was completely bogus though. A small box in a landfill is nothing compared to copper mines, smelters, chip fabs and chemical plants. It was around the same time that reusable glass bottles began to dissapear, replaced with "environmentally friendly" recyclable plastic bottles. I have trouble believing that cleaning glass bottles is worse for the environment than pouring plastic.
Wow, I'm wickedly off topic.
I guess if he patented "recyclable" cell phones, nobody would care. Ah well, my girfriend bought her digital phone for roughly $70CDN, and pays roughly $20CDN for more airtime than she can use. That's already less than $20USD.
I'll go find my bed now.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
The only reason i never got a cellphone is that my need for it is outweighed by the trouble of dealing with a monthly service contract, rate plans, etc. Where do i get one? p.s. i promise to dispose of it responsibly
Imagine a world where all we had was disposable cell phones, no LCD's, no Incoming Calls... hey wait a minute.
At least such a thing would be good for criminals.
disposable laptops
mm!
(mine needs disposing.. grr.. that POJ)
Insert mind here.
Does the world really need this?
If you post it, they will read.
Well great now we can fill our landfills with disposable cell phones. Am I the only one who see's the problem here...
I wonder how law enforcement types are gonna react to something like this. A bunch of numberless, disposable phones and a pager don't sound very easy to tap, and you know how they (the same people who want to embed sattelite phones with GPS locators) are about being able to intercept and locate calls.
So, if I want to get a patent, all I have to do is take a product that currently exists, and remove stuff? Ok, here's one:
A microwave oven.... with no buttons!
Wow, this is fun! Ok, one more:
Windows... without the bugs!
Oh damn, I'm gonna get rich!
I just thought of something that could spur from this that just turns my stomach. If the calls are truly anonymous, what's going to stop people from making threatening and harassing calls? I mean, you pick one of these things up, and you have sixty minutes of time to spend making bomb threats and death threats and whatever else you've got in mind. Sound farfetched? Not even close. What's going to stop anyone from making a bomb threat to the establishment that has pissed them off lately? Not a thing. It can't be traced to them.
I'm interested to see what thoughts anyone has on this particular angle of these phones.
I think big-time drug dealers have been using this
technology for years to elude the police (but
with regular cell phones that they threw away
after making a call).
Of course, who would come forward with prior art?
I'm not too familiar with the most inner workings of switching, but I'm sure all these damn things could be made to show up as "Junkphone Inc" with one number on Caller ID, and not have individual DNs themselves.
One of the first posters claimed to have worked in a photo shop where these thing were routinely thrown out.
Does anyone else out there have some facts/direct personal knowledge about what happens to these things? If so, please enlighten us!
Reuse. How are you supposed to reuse the thing if it's disposable? Besides, though recycling is certainly not energetically free, it does have some other major benefits besides any potential savings of energy, including: it conserves scarce and/or toxic chemicals (eg, whoever thought to make mercury batteries disposable needs a lobotomy or two).
Yes, most SUV-driving environmentalists are hypocrites. That doesn't disqualify the intentions they fail to realize, however (unless you believe in the logical validity of ad hominem arguments, in which case you're twice a fool).
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Folks, read the article.
Which made me think, well, I did read the article, maybe not slowly enough, though. So back I went. And now I think it was he who didn't read it slowly enough:
Vector Inspector:
The phone isn't even really meant to be disposable: Part of it is credit card shaped so it can be swiped through and given more air time. You can keep using this sucker 'till the battery dies..
Article:
~~~~~~~
It would require a longer-lasting power source than the 60-minute battery Ms. Altschul envisions with the purely disposable cell phone.
~~~~~~~~~~
So folks, let's be sure to recognize this beast for what it is!
Interestingly I'm currently taking a small break from reading a book by Donald L. Hardesty "The Archaeology of the Donner Party." Its a really good book. Like anyone cares...;-)
Kudos to you. Any "eco-freak" who moderates you down is an ignorant "eco-freak" because your point is a good one. In fact, your point is very much more "eco-freak"y than that of someone advocating recycling! ;) That being said, why did you have to make your point with such flame-ish language and name calling? Furthermore, though I agree that the issue needs more thought than knee-jerk reaction, I doubt that the "garbage problem" is as non-existent as you claim it to be. Does anyone out there have some nice, solid numbers (as opposed to agendas)?
It wasn't too long ago that I too thought recycling was the most damned important thing for an environmentally-friendly person to do. Fortunately, a wise, more rational friend pointed out that as soon as you start including energy into your resource calculations, recycling is often Not a Good Thing (tm). Somehow the word "recycling" got so much airtime in the U.S. that it has embraced and extended its much more important colleagues: reduce and reuse. This phenomenon is in plain view in the comments for this article. People are using "recycle" to mean everything from breaking down into elemental components and rebuilding to recharging the battery. It would be easy enough to develop a corporate-conspiracy theory for this phenomenon (no corporation ever benefits from reducing/reusing), but that would be silly. Or would it?
So come on folks, use the right word for the idea you want to express. When promoting resource conservation (including energy):
reduce >> reuse >>>>> recycle.
This is off on a tangent, but you said:
.39 pitch that came with a P120-P166... Pathetic.
>and naturally, the display was dead sharp.
[I hope that was sarcasm, in which case, ignore the below].
From what I've seen from IBM, their displays have plain old just sucked real bad. I've seen the original color VGA 13". Focus so bad, I don't think it could pass as a TV. The crap they put on their crAptivas is so lame, a freind of mine (who was the unlucky owner of a crAptiva) and I noticed something. On some AcerView 56e monitors, pushing the middle two buttons at the same time resets the settings. On the crAptiva monitor, which had a similar size, similar nasty picture, same button positions, and same LED positions, pushing the two middle buttons... reset the settings. ie. IBM was brading Acer Crap (tm) with their name. Hahaha!
And, I've seen the monitors they used to sell on their high-end 486's when they were out (and when an MCA [or was it EISA/VLB? Don't remember now] 486 IBM cost $3500 or so) their standard monitor with that package couldn't do 1024x768 in non-interlaced mode. That was poor, although about average... If the computer had cost $1000...
And, of course, going to high school in the WRDSB (aka. WCBE) of Ontario, Canada, we were forced to have the great choice of IBM or Mac. No, not IBM clone, IBM only. The school board foolishly got themseleves locked into a deal with IBM, who didn't even give them a decent price break. I used the monitors on those computers... Gotta love the
Ok, the rants over now. I guess I just have a special sore spot in my heart for Big Blue.
I think this would be pretty useless in an emergency situation, because batteries lose charge with time... you'd have to replace your emergency phone in your car every year or two. I'd never remember, although maybe some people would. I guess the other problem is that batteries generally are considered hazardous waste... you couldn't drop your disposable phone in the garbage; instead you'd have to dispose of it as hazardous waste. Recycle, good... reuse, better, if it is possible with the final design... reduce, better, just don't use the lousy thing at all. If you don't want the hassle, get a prepaid phone. Much more versatile, and not much more money.
Is it just me, or does this seem eerily close to what the characters did in the film "The Matrix"?
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//o/39
I've always wondered, other than the waster, and the possibility of danger, when running properly, does a Nuclear Power Plant damage the environment at all (except for waste)?
:-)
Personally, I've always figured 'no', so, I've never really been against well-managed Nuke Plant, so long as the waste is dealt with properly. Buuut, there have been accidents, so I've never felt fully confident with the idea...
So, want to clue me in?
where a.b.c.d is the IP of this AC luser.
As far as my observation and experience goes, people carry cellphones primarily to receive calls. Making calls is a second priority.
It also serves as some kind of identity that people can relate you to this number, so personally that you are sure that your friend, and not his/her family is going to pick up the phone. It's sort of like an email address.
Some companies tried call-only cell phones before, coupled with a pager. They didn't last...let's see how this goes.
By the way, I'm against disposable anything as long as they are not biodegradable.
There is a big question about nuclear power plants - I've heard that cancer rates go up around them, and you need to mine uranium, which is hard on the environment - but thanks to Nuclear Weapons, there's lots and lots of fissionable material available.
Some people argue that the damage that radiation can do doesn't make it worth it at any rate. You can ruin land _forever_ if there is an accident.
In my opinion, while other sources of energy are available, we should use those, instead. We still don't understand photosynthesis - plants dissociate water into H+ for energy transport - much like a fuel cell - and nobody is exactly sure how they do this without burning up. My dad who is a PhD Genetist laments about that frequently - in most biology textbooks, there's a "and then a miracle happens" box in the explaination. OTOH, Not many engineers take biology! :)
The technology is important though, because it might lead to breakthroughs in other forms of atomic power, like fusion, or ways to deal with radiation we're not aware of. This is why I suspect no more nuclear plants are being built, but they're not being shut down, either.
The end of the world speeches by environmentalists are largely without regard for technology. We're only beginning to understand the marvels of the universe, and there's lots of friendly energy sources to exploit along the way. In other words, your computer won't be SOL anytime soon (barring Y2K disasters! :)
Kudos..
..don't panic
Who in their right mind, asside from criminals and kids who want to look cool (also known as wannabes) would want one of these things?
How about someone who wants a cell phone only for emergencies? Twenty five dollars for 60 minutes (including the phone) is the best prepaid deal I've seen. It's even better if those minutes don't expire. Most prepaid deals expire within 6-12 months, and you still have to buy the phone.
It would also be great for travel, since it's more convenient than a phone booth. When you're on vacation and your rental car breaks down in he middle of nowhere, it helps to have a cell phone.And if it's lost or stolen, you haven't lost much. You won't be billed for hours of calls to some country you've never heard of.
Why do people buy long-distance calling cards instead of signing up for a long-distance carrier? If you travel a lot, or you don't make many long-distance calls, cards cost less than long distance service. Disposable cell phones would appeal to those consumers.
P.S.- Sprint PCS isn't available in a lot of areas (like my hometown, which is 50 miles from Boston but hardly in the boondocks).
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
LainݽH
Here's a particularly nasty toy you can make with some commonly available goodies, for all you Dr. Evil-in-training types (I wonderink if Mikhail makink these device when leetle boy, da?)
What You'll Need
What You DoDischarge the Capacitor. Just bridge the leads of the capacitor with some wire, a screwdriver, or any other ol' peice of metal you got on hand. Better safe than sorry... at least for the time being. >B)
(optional) Extend your Leads. Depending on the size of your capacitor and the length of the leads, you may need to add a little more metal on to the end of 'em. If you have a radial style cap (two leads at the bottom), you'll probably need to extend one lead so that it'll reach up to the top of the cap.
Tape Up the Cap. Lay down a layer of tape across the length of the capacitor. Don't leave any metal exposed except for the leads themselves. If you have a radial cap, run the long lead along the length of your cap and tape down two-thirds of it overtop of the base layer to electrically isolate it until it gets past mid-way up your cap.
Make Your Contacts. Tinfoil time! Cut out 2 strips. Make them wide enough so that they're just a bit less wide than half the length of the capacitor, and long enough so you can wrap it around a few times.
Attach the Contacts to the Cap. Tape the short end of one of your strips to the barrel at one end. Wrap it around once, then put the lead for that end on the foil and continue wrapping (with that lead embedded in the foil) until you run out of strip. Tape down the short end and long ends of the exposed foil, then repeat for the other end. Make sure the foil contacts don't touch in the middle, and only make contact with one capacitor lead each. The intent here is to make two really big foil-based leads to the capacitor.
Test the Contacts. Pull out your continuity tester and put one probe on each of the two contacts. If you did it right, the resistance should start close to 0, then steadily increase to infinity. This is because testers use a little current to see if there's a connection, and you're slightly charging the cap when you test. If the resistance stays at or near zero, you either have a dead cap, or you have a short between the two contacts.
Charge 'er Up. Set your voltage to the rating on the cap (or as close as you can get) and let it sit for a minute. Right now you're sucking billions of fun-filled electrons from one plate and depositing them on another inside the cap. Can't you just feel the tension?
Choose Your Victim Carefully. Young, relatively healthy individuals of whom you know you can run faster are best. People you really dislike are also good. Try to avoid old people, people with pacemakers, epilepsy or similar physiological/neurological disorders, people holding hot drinks (cold drinks can add to the fun ;), sharp or heavy objects. People who own lots of guns are probably not very good targets, but YYOJ. Remember the fine print.
Special Delivery! Hold your device with a glove, or carefully by only ONE contact. Approach your victim, and when about 10 feet away or so, shout "Hey , catch!" and gently toss the thing to 'em. Human nature is such that it makes us believe that small, slow moving objects should be caught in those situations, typically with both hands.
*POP!*
Laugh Your Ass Off and/or Run Like Hell. Self explanatory. Hope you had fun. Besides, you have to run home and build some more, unless your victim forgets about the thing and leaves it on the ground for some other Geek to take home and play with. Ah, the joys of simple electronics. The idea can be scaled down to smaller caps too (for little bitty jolts) if you want. Axials work MUCH better in those situations, as trying to line up the wires on one inch wide caps is a major PITA. For small caps, discard the tinfoil and just wrap the leads around the barrel as long as you can without them touching. Some hot-glue might be useful to hold things down. Make sure they're at least large enough to be easily visible to the naked eye while in the air, as they have to be seen to be caught. Have fun, and play safe!
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
Coming Soon: You too can share the convenience of disposable technology with new patent-pending Disposable Linux.
Simply purchase Disposable Linux at your nearest computer software distributor for a mere $69.99 - less than Red Hat. After installing Disposable Linux, simply register your copy by providing us with personal marketting data and a signed disclaimer giving us the full rights to sell your email address to mass mailing lists and you're set for life!
Whenever a new kernel is released, dispose of your hard drive at the nearest Disposable Linux office. We'll provide you with the newest edition of the Linux kernel and an updated version of Disposable Linux for a only $39.99.
With Disposable Linux, you can always claim to be on the bleeding edge of technology. See your cow-orkers' amazement as you walk in daily with the newest edition of Linux available.
In addition, Disposable Linux does not harm the environment in any way, unlike our competitors' disposable products. We recycle your old hard drives and processors and reuse them to avoid wasting the world's limited silicon supply!
Look for the Disposable Linux IPO in the next few months!
---
SimCity 3000: The Ultimate Geek Game
http://www.planetsimcity.com
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
It reminds me of something we have here in Brazil. It's a pre-paid cellular phone. It works like this: You buy the cellular phone in any shop (for about US$ 125 - yes, you cannot throw that in a bucket of water) and you have some minutes of credit (I don't know the exact figures, as I don't own one).
When the credit expires, you simply "recharge" it, paying for more minutes. The scheme for recharging is very practical: once you pay for it (either in vending machines or via internet banking or on special ATMs, or even by phone), you are given a code. Just type in this code, press the ENTER key and you're ready for another round. You decide how much you are going to pay (and, therefore, how many minutes of conversation you have). It's very much like refueling a car.
Different from this one that has just been patented, this Brazilian model also receives calls. The good thing is that the owner of the cell. phone does not pay for incoming calls. The drawback is that outgoing calls are very expensive (US$ 0.70/min., flat). So it's a good thing to have if you want to be called but don't need to make many calls. The credits expire after some time, from 3 monthes to 1 year, depending on how much you paid. If you pay US$ 50, you can have it working for 1 year, provided you don't use it too much.
It's becoming quite popular.
-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
Remember the flap over the gov'ts demand to make iridium calls traceable (more so than just to the nearest hemisphere). I think they wanted to mandate GPS receivers in the phone. There has been some talk about GPS in conventional cell phones too to tracek exactly where calls originate from. But even cell phones and sat phones are registered to someone. A disposable cell phone would be too anonymous for the gov't comfort.
Howaboutit. A battery that has a half life 86,000 years. Good for the life of the phone or the user, whichever comes first. Features micro thin lightweight gold plate sheilding, and a glow in the dark light at no extra cost. Great for camping, doubles up as a hand or pocket warmer. warning to retail outlets: do not store batteries together. Wonder what would happen in a big convention centre?
That was the technique of choice when I was in high school.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Darn, I wish lynx had Japanese character support... (and I could read Japanese) Lain rocks.
(But do we want to?)
Electronic Design News
Sept 30, 1999
A final design bill of materials for a dual-band GSM phone should be less than $10, with the chip set accounting for about half that figure.
Analog Devices' ADS6523/6524 chip set
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Apple has continued that trend with the introduction of the little round (and incredibly un-ergonomic) mouse that comes with the new colorful macs.
anybody remember this idea as one of William Gibson's?
teeny weeny SM piclike cpu, that randomly alters the important numbers. While you walk around it is busy working out new valid combinations. A push of a button randomly selects one out of the valid cache. Slide out your own chip, slide this baby in. Now patent that.
How much more are we going to abuse the resources of the Earth? We are producing a lot of resource-consuming goods already, we don't really need to produce cell phones that we can toss after 60 minutes! I am as horrified of this as of the people who change cars every 1-2 years. To produce those cars you gotta consume a lot of energy, a lot of minerals, a lotof clean water and air, and then you use it one year only? And this cell phone is even worse, an hour only????
OK, let's move to another planet, this one we screwed up already.
(did you know that an average USA citizen consumes about 800 times more resource-units than a citizen of India?)
Sigged!
Ofcourse your average public phone does not allow this? Not much problem there.. not to mention calling from other public places, it's not necessary to be afraid of this just because of anonymity, there's already more than enough ways to use a telephone without anyone being able to trace you fast.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
A disposable phone is silly. We have another kind where I live. You buy the phone, and pay for the hardware only. No monthly bills. Then you buy a card that lets you talk for x hours. When it is used up, toss the card and and buy a new one. The phone remains. This has all the advantages of the disposable phone (privacy, paid in advance) but a lot less garbage, and recycling a card is easier than the whole phone too.
Some might argue that the police can trace you as you use the same phone all the time. Not so, you can sell the phone to anybody and buy a new one as often as you wish. There is no paperwork at all involved in that. Yes - there was a debate that criminals might like this and it looks like they do. Having criminals at all is the bigger problem though.
This could actually be an excellent idea if the phone could be 're-charged' with more minutes/hours etc. So many people have already responded with "OH MY GOD, THERE'S SO MUCH GARBAGE ALREADY AS IS!", but jeez, stop whining and think of all the garbage you probably make. I agree that yes, if people could really afford to buy and then toss away a disposable c-phone, then of course it would create a garbage problem. But think about it, we certainly don't have a huge problem with those small disposable cameras. I agree with those that mentioned this would make an excellent emergency type of communication. And think about your personal cell phone, if the battery dies, you always have cheap backup. Some people (like myself) have a cell phone mostly for emergencies or quick calls. I would much rather buy one of these than have to pay the monthly service fee. If those of you that were kicking and screaming about how this would create a garbage problem, hey, don't use any more batteries. Even the rechargable ones are harmful after they've lived their lifetimes. Become amish or something. Just know your role, or shut your mouth.
..yet they're selling like hotcakes.
Most people are short-sighted; the fact that the environment will be horribly polluted by their habits in half a century pales into insignificance next to short-term gratification. After all, one person's use of disposable electronics or gas-guzzling mega-SUVs by itself has negligible impact, and everybody else is happily polluting the planet to hell, so why can't we?
And so, the environment goes down the toilet.
Here in Sweden where we have GSM there is something called cash cards that work in a similar way.
A cash card is basicly a pre paid SIM card that you can use in any GSM phone until the money in it runns out. The SIM card IS the subscription so you can do both incomming and outgoing calls. If the card runns out of money just buy a new card or refill the old card if you want to keep the old number.
Many people give this to their kids so that they
can reach them in case of emergencies.
These cards are anonymous.
So how does the law like them?
Not at all!
They can bug them or tie calls made on them to a person. There was a debate over makeing them illegal or not but the police lost the debate.
These cash cards are now about 20 - 30% of the subscriptions in the networks and make BIG BUCKS.
So this is a patent on an old idea from Europe.
/Thomas
-Sig-
Unfortunataly it's true.... Also Unfortunataly you were moderated down
-------------------------------------------
Movie News - "Entertainment news, bitch!"
(except for waste)?
That's a big 'except'.
This is one reason (of many) that the pre-pay mobile phone is so popular in Europe (and NZ). Baiscally you get a phone, and buy cards which let you "charge up" your phone.
No contracts, no bills, no trace. Most operators insist you upload a minimum amount per quarter/6months/12 months to keep the number active.
Call charges per minute (originators pay here) are higher than contract type phones, but if you use the phone mainly for incoming use, they work out good value.
Another great product! Does anyone really NEED a disposable mobile? Tampons and Nappies (Diapers); YES. All the other shit; NO.
I think its about time we posted IPs of nuts like you... Instead of posting them to slashdot, we could send them and their comments to the place with the rubber rooms...
Given that it takes a lot of energy to make a cell phone in the first place. Reusing it makes indeed a lot of sense. That is why the idea of producing a cell phone that can not be reused untill it breaks makes me sick.
While it can heat your water from the rooftop in some climates, solar isn't so friendly to the environment, either.
Commercially,you have two major choices
1) Acres and acres of panels. These raise the temperature beneath them by enough to change the ecosystem beneath them (yes, there is an ecosystem beneath the surface in the desert).
2) Solar Sattelites, beaming power down (MASER?). Just don't cross the beam . . .
At least for large American cars, CO emmissions were pretty much eliminated about 10 years ago. The last time my 89 Crown Victoria went in for a smog test, its CO emmissions were below what the machine (in Nevada) could detect. Even before connecting it, the attendant told me it would probably blow 0.0 . . .
:)
I had a client whose ex-husband-to-be tried suicide, with the old hose-from-the-exhaust-pipe trick. But he used an 89 Buick. Same problem. THough I suppose that if the garage was well enough sealed, the engine could have gone through most of the O2, causing him to pass out, leading him to starve to death if the fuel held out
I thought a friend was crazy when he referred to a cell phone in his 16 year old daughter's car. Then he explained: emergency use *only*.
:) ]
It made sense to me then. Now that I have four daughters of my own, it makes even more sense . . .
[ok, not just a cell-phone, but something lethal, too
Yeah. And if I have kids they can play in the underground radioactive concrete jungles with the other kids. PS This is not satirical or sarcastic.
Make the shell out of some degradable material and offer cash refunds for dropping off the old units at some recycling center. Tear off the shell, replace and recycle the batteries, reprogram the phone for the next customer and wrap a new shell on it. C'mon stop being hysterical! This would pollute less than all of the batteries from Palm pilots that people chuck out today. Hell, make it w/o a battery altogether, put the contacts on the outside and sell a keywound generator that attaches to the unit. Return the phone keep the power supply.
...then no landfill problem, you can literally "eat your words" (or someone else's), and if you don't want to eat it you can always call somebody who might.
It's pretty sad. We grow enough food on this planet to feed more than everyone, and still people go hungry. However, as a consolation, we've invented a phone that's cheap enough that you can just throw it away. Woop dee doo.
I think they have had this in Japan for about two years now. Vending machines.. I wish I could find a link...
I would like to point out that we're not being "buried in our own garbage". This is largely a view promoted by environmentalists that don't understand how big the planet is, and sometimes, "just throwing it away", is the best thing to do from a environmental perspective!
Good point we can haul our trash to some under, though not un-populated area in the stix. Unfortunately these locations are becoming further and further away from the source of the trash (cities) because of the expanding effect of cities, so it takes more enregy to get the trash to these repositories.
I don't want to start a flamewar, and I'll probably get moderated down by an eco-freak, but please concider[sic] that when you recycle something, it doesn't magically turn into another product. It requires a LOT of energy to recycle something, and contrary to what suburban SUV-drivin feel-good people thing, power doesn't come out of the wall for free.
Of course it takes energy to recycle something, but it also takes energy to manufacture something. I find it difficult to believe it takes less energy to mine ore in Argentina smelt it ship it to the US and manufacture soda pop cans than it does to collect cans locally ship the within the US (and probably the state), re-smelt and manufacture it. As to the SUV's Hallelujah! I'll take 30 miles to the gallon over 10 mpg no matter what the fashion statement, and pocket the $15,000 difference.
It needs to come from a coal, hydro (which ISN'T eco-friendly - flooded land produces methane, worse for the environment than coal!) or nuclear plant. Recycling is often worse than throwing it away!
Um...yes it is. I can't site any studies here, but I've been to reservoirs and dams and such (which also have their ecological problems, primarily dealing with inability of fish to spawn up river when their if this three hundred foot wall in the way...sort of like the difficulties of a geek getting laid...) and I've been to Eastern Europe. Coal sucks. The stuff you can see is bad enough much less the hydrocarbons.
Interestingly enough, a study done in England (Referenced in American Scientific, Sigma Xi Jorunal) indicates that recycling causes _more_ consumption, since people _feel good_ about using recycled products!
Sure more consumption but of what products? Recycled products or non-recycled products? If it's a feel good phenomenon, would people who recycle want to purchase the goods they recycle. And for that matter if you use resources more efficiently you can afford to manufacture more.
This doesn't mean a throw away culture is OK - but if you need the service or product, it might make sense. There is L O T S of room for L O T S of garbage on this planet - more than we will ever need, 'cause we'll do ourselves long in based on current population projections before this is an issue.
Sure there is lots of space. Its ridiculous to think that we could bury the planet in trash. However fatalistic attitudes on how we should use the limited resources on the planet are unlikely to lead to any meaningful adjustment of how to properly use those resources.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Recycling is last, because it doesn't work very well! Why does everyone forget about the first two, which work _Really_ well. Cut down, and reuse.
Reduce - don't get the freaking bag if you only have a few items, its okay to ask that you not get a bag.
Reuse - if you have a bag at home, put it in your pocket and bring it with you, those pastic bags are both light and compact.
Recycle - we are all just going to die anyway...I mean, sure when the bag is getting old recycle it.
Just because it's disposable, doesn't mean it's bad. It might even be BETTER. It might not feel good, though. Consuming resources is something we should think about, and I think people think sucking energy is OK just because it's being recycled, which sometimes is really dumb. Sure sometimes it is good to have disposable items.
A great couple of examples are needles and condoms. I wouldn't want anyone reusing those. {shiver}
Think about that when you're haulin those bottles back in your 4 ton Ford Extrusion, er, Excursion, wasting a resource we should conserve - gasoline.
If you or the (trash person) are going to be hauling it to a dump somewhere, why would it take more energy to haul it to a recycle center?
Do you ever feel like there are people watching you? You're not alone.
Using a pay phone is different, though. Pay phones have phone numbers that can be traced. Investigators then know exactly where the call was made from. Any little tiny clue whatsoever - including someone seeing you at that phone - could bust your ass. With these disposable phones, though, you could be sitting in your room in your house or crusing down the street yacking like all the other morons who drive and yack. True, pay phones are just as good, but they leave the authorities a clue, and sometimes a person can be tripped up that way.
Another cell phone scheme.
I hate the idea of the disposable camera (although I have given thought as to whether you could reload film into one yourself - thus getting a cheap camera). I was appalled at the idea of the disposable Polaroid camera.
But a disposable cell phone? Come on, is this something that is really needed? Even the "criminals will use it" angle doesn't fly with me - if someone is going to do something wrong with a cellphone, they are not going to care whether it is disposable or not - they will use it and toss it just the same.
What happened to cell phones you really owned - I remember when it cost close to $1000 for a cell phone, then you paid for the plan. What happens on today's cell phones? You pay x number of $$ and get the phone free? Does that mean you can keep the phone at the end of the contract (RTO rolled into the monthly bill)? Or do you return it? I always get a chuckle when I try to find out what it would cost for analog service to my Motorola Classic block phone...
One thing is for certain - I am glad that I don't have a cell phone. If people want to get in contact with me, they can wait until I get home - my time is my time.
On a good day in California, you can get enough power from your roof to heat some of your water, but not enough to run the house--at least with the solar cells in the forseeable future.
The telephone company pre-paid cash cards contain a unique 80 bit ID number. The first 46 bits are a manufacturer code and lot number. The remaining bits are programable when the chip is finally tested after being assembled on the card. Then the programming fuse is blown and the card can only be used to count down remaining units. This allows police to track all usage of the card, so if it was used to make any other calls, they have a lead.
[obSecurity sideline: most cash card chips can be reprogrammed after use, and there is a *HUGE* black market all over europe for re-programmed cards. The telcos are now all gearing up to prosecute those who use them ]
The GSM cards contain the normal GSM identifying codes, and most countries require the selling store to check the ID of the buyer. In France and England the stores must record your details for the security forces, and you have to prove you have a legal residence. Germany is the opposite, requiring no data be collected on the buyers. Sweden sounds the same.
The GSM cards can be traced to the selling store, its a requirement built into the entire GSM distributuion system. This is to guarantee security for the telcos so someone can track stolen/hijacked/cloned cards. The GSM handset also contains the IMEI number, which is sent along with the chip ID for every call setup (and is tracked from cell to cell whether you are making calls or not).
You would be surprised how easily it is for law enforcement to track down crimes and terrorist threats made over the GSM network. The french anti-terrorist squad arrested a few dozen corsican terrorists earlier this year using cell site records containing channel, power, IMEI #, time, handoffs, not the billing info.
the AC (back from 2 weeks in Mongolia)
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
It might be a good idea!
Think about it. A disposable cell phone has at least one really great use. Think about the person who is stranded with a dead engine and has to hunt for a phone and have spare change to use it. This happened to my parents and I not even two months ago. We were on the way to get Tacos when the van died. My father had to walk close to a mile, at dusk just to call a tow. It was good weather, and we were lucky someone was open who had a public phone. What if it was storming, maybe with hail and high winds? Or snow. We would be stuck there. What if someone was trying to break into the car, what could we do? Things would have been a lot safer and easier with a cell phone in the glove compartment. Having only that use for a cell phone one with a contract and monthly payments to get incoming calls is a bit stupid. I would think they [disposable phones] would become *standard* in all road kits, right next to the flares and first aid kit. At $20 people wouldn't have to worry about losing them or breaking them. How about hikers? Bikers? People off at the lake for some fishing? Just about any place where you may need to contact someone be it for help or for some comfort. I would prefer however if the phones weren't quite so disposable, getting it recharged, and reset for a lesser fee [maybe $10] would be great. It might even have some uses for parents who want to make sure their children have a way to call 911 or to call home. I can't really see why so many are against this idea. Road flares are disposable, so are band aids. I don't see anyone cussing those out. CB radios, and a lot of walkie talkies are anonymous. I don't see anyone cussing those out either. Is it just that everyone should have a car phone already, being the late 90's and all? Well I'm sorry but a lot of people don't have car phones because they don't need to talk eight hours a week to six important clients. Calling cards need a phone to use them. CBs need someone who gives a damn to relay for help. Who (excluding those who already have cell phones and use them often) would not want one of these in the car, just in case?
It could have a cute package in the store too. On the back of the package it could show the state, like Florida and show what areas it covers.
My mother loves the idea of the phone, so does my father, my brother. They would buy one in a heartbeat. If it meant no monthly fees, no hour long contracts, no service plans. Who really wants to spend more time buying and signing up for a cell and getting a sale pitch then they plan to spend using the cell?
Think about it.
This idea isn't as trivial as it first sounds.
Note the fact that this phone is not only limited-life disposable, but also that it's outgoing calls only. This seems obvious at first, after all, who wants a disposable phone with a number that only lasts a month ? Actually it's much smarter than that for a cell phone.
What appears to have been invented here is a disposable version of the old UK Rabbit phone, when in outdoor mode.
Not being rechargable for call time is wasteful, but probably made necessary by limits in reliable crypto. If you ever managed to break the crypto on the call life recharging machine, then you'd have an inexhaustible supply of free calls. No sensible operator would like the idea of being exposed to that risk.