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Stick it in your ear!

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DQW Bureau
New Update

I'm not being rude. But, speaking of pocket phones, I am offering you the instruction manual for what might be the next generation of cellphones, now being explored by NTT DoCoMo (Japan's wireless, and

largest, ISP).

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Brought to our attention by RCFoC reader Arto Stimms, DoCoMo has come up with a rather unusual human interface for its prototype wristwatch cellphone, shown at the CEATEC 2000 show in Japan.

As described in the October 10 IDG News Service (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article.asp?aid=31342), this "wristwatch" has a special speaker on its underside that sits in tight contact with your skin. Sound from the phone is sent into your hand and, yes, you stick your finger into your ear to hear the phone conversation; the sound is conducted to your ear through your hand's bone and cartilage! 

With your forefinger in your ear, you speak normally towards the microphone that's embedded on the back of the wristband. We're told that the sound seems a bit distant and low, but that it really does work! In another departure from a typical user interface, you control many of the phone's functions by tapping your thumb against your forefinger in differing rhythms! I don't know if most people are ready for such an unusual control mechanism, especially when another contender, Samsung's wristwatch cellphone, uses more natural voice interaction. And, there is the promise of wireless Bluetooth "ear buds" in the air, which would make the finger unnecessary. In fact, I rather wonder if people are ready to walk around with their fingers in their ears (just picture the airport gate area - at least we'd have one reason to laugh as our planes are delayed).

Nevertheless, the idea of exploring even such unusual human-machine interaction has merit -- you just never know which one will prove useful in the end, even if for a different application than originally intended.

See -- truth can indeed sometimes be stranger than fiction, even when it comes to giving your phone the finger! And -- I guess we could end up as a society with much cleaner ears...





Jeffrey Harrow


Senior Consulting Engineer


(Technology and Corporate Development Group), Compaq


Note: This is an article from the `Rapidly Changing Face of Computing', a free weekly multimedia technology journal written by Jeffrey Harrow. More discussions around the innovations and trends of contemporary computing and the technologies that drive them are available at

www.compaq.com/rcfoc. The writer's opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Compaq. The RCFoC is copyright 2000, Compaq.




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