Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Monday 4 June 2007, 7:06 PM
One on the wrist
The human wrist is a dangerous place. Company after company has tried to use it as a platform for personal high technology - HP, Intel, Microsoft - and company after company has failed.
In particular, people have tried to put radios there. Clive Sinclair has had many bites at that particular cherry -- ah, do yer own Google search -- and the young Goodwins once tried to build a three-transistor super-regenerative 27MHz transceiver into an old sweet tin that could, with no particular plausibility, be strapped to a limb. You can now buy slightly more capable wrist-mounted walkie-talkies - but that's not what we want, is it?
Naw. This is what we want. A full quad-band, colour touch screen, 80hr standby, 200 minutes talktime Bluetoothed GSM phone, shoehorned into something you can stuff up your sleeve without looking desperately asymmetric.
Does it work? Dunno. Is the user interface any good for things like texts? Dunno. Will I find out? Well, not at £400 and a 45 day delivery time from Hong Kong, and I expect that applies to most of the globe. So for now, it'll remain a minor curiosity -- at least until a big name takes it up. Just imagine if Apple launched it as the iPhone Nano...
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