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Technology

Disposable Cell Phones 235

Posted by Hemos from the mmm-feed-the-land-fill dept.
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!
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Disposable Cell Phones More

Disposable Cell Phones

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  • 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!
  • 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!)

  • You know, I don't really like the idea of disposable technology...we already have enough litter lining the highways as it is.

  • If they hold a charge... (Score:3)

    by Rombuu ( 22914 ) on Monday November 08, 1999 @01:51PM (#1551232)
    ...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.
  • 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.
    ---

  • 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 ?

  • Already been done (Score:5)

    by Brian Knotts ( 855 ) <bknottsNO@SPAMcascadeaccess.com> on Monday November 08, 1999 @01:52PM (#1551236)
    I mean what are they gunna make disposible next....computers?

    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 [slappy.org]

  • Making things disposable is so silly. Stop it damn it >:|.

    Just have cheap cellphones and calling cards ...wait there already are.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Is there a Bad Side? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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.
  • The Canadian plan is C$150 including about $50 of air time. Even with our dollar, that's still about USD$100. The article said $20 for the phone with a block of airtime.
  • This is sick! I can't believe that anyone would do this! Don't we have enough problems with garbage as it is? It's not worth destroying our planet just to stay connected.

    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.

  • Think what a benefit this will be as a stress relief tool.

    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.
  • The thing with prepaid cell phones is that they usually operate on a 'buy x minutes of time over the phone' philosophy. The problem lies in this: the lowest denomination of minutes you can buy is usually high (around 30) and are fairly expensive, and the phone requires that you buy minutes every [other] month, or it stops working and you have to get it re-activated.

    So, in other words, it's still basicially a monthly fee, they just disguise it a little.

    Levine
  • 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.
  • I think that's the point of Hemos's "mmm-feed-the-land-fill" tagline.

    I hope the manufacturers have the good sense to charge a "deposit fee" that's refundable if the phone is sent back for recycling/recharging/remanufacturing.

    More to the point, why make them truly disposable when the unit still has implicit value? A much better business model would allow a user to buy additional time if there's battery life left. When the battery's dusted, turn the phone in and get your deposit back and credit for unused time.

    ------
  • It would make more sense if you returned them back to the manufacturer for reloading. Perhaps they could give five bucks off of a new phone if you return the old one, or somesuch.
  • oops, i meant to add that at $20 for 60 minutes, it's 33 cents per minute of anonymous cellular phone calls. (yes, i know the math is simple but i'm just pointing out the low price of anonymity.)

  • Well they probably said the same thing about underwear, but an edible phone just doesn't seem as fun...
  • I would think that authorities would get a little upset with the anonymity this kind of disposable tool brings with it. Granted, it's not near as untraceable as the Iridium phones, but at least your name isn't tied to the accouting systems anywhere.

    I'd love these things (if the the bang-for-the-buck was good, unlike their calling-card cousins), and would probably use them if they delivered what is promised.

    I'm almost certain a recycling mechanism would be in place, much like the disposable camera system. Though this analogy is weak, as your pictures are held hostage by the fact that you must return the camera to get them. I imagine maybe a deposit/refund system would work. The phone with time costs you $30, but you get $10 back for returning the phone.

    Can you imagine vending machines dispensing cell phones and SIM (correct term?) chips for extra time? Very neat idea.

  • 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.

    &lt/ADVERT&gt

    This disposable idea sounds mad. As virtually everyone else has said.

    Bah. Humbug.


    --Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
  • I can see these things being useful in the same situations where disposable cameras are useful: when you're on vacation or somewhere where you'd be afraid to lose your "real" phone.

    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 [slashdot.org].
    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.
  • I wonder how many Big Mac eaters and Walmart shoppers it would take to flood the wireless network with cheap talk.

    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

  • This is ludicrous! We're being buried in our own garbage already, and now someone wants to add cheap throwaway phones to the trash stream. Bad for the environment and bad for us!

  • If I were stranded in Nebraska I would volunteer myself to be the first meal, cell-phone or not.
    -------------------------------------------- --------------

  • Analog Network (Score:3)

    by ddpg ( 34874 ) on Monday November 08, 1999 @02:10PM (#1551267) Homepage
    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.
    ------------------------------------------- ---------------
  • The article says it only does outgoing calls. This certainly won't replace the non-disposable variety.

    The anonymity would be of great value, though most people don't know (or care) how much their privacy is invaded.

    Imagine a drug dealer and one of his clients decided to "meet" on a local party line (most are free anymore). Talk in "code" slang and they are safe.

    Better yet... modem adapters! Totally (well... almost) anonymous surfing, chatting, etc., though that would chew up cell time fast.

  • In most circumstances, 'emergency use' would probably be the worst possible justification for a phone like this. Since it's intended as a disposable phone, it probably won't be rechargeable. So you throw one in your glove box; then, once you've driven into the snowbank, you pull it out and... the battery's died. You're up a creek with no way to recharge it. With a normal, rechargeable phone, you've got a much better chance in this situation; just plug the phone into the cigarette lighter, as long as your car battery hasn't gone dead too. And with a rechargeable phone, you can afford to test the thing before you head out on your trip, without worrying that your test call will be the straw that breaks the battery's back.

    If all you want is a phone for true, life-threatening emergencies, there's another option; just find someone who's recently cancelled their cellphone plan, and offer to buy their phone. In these days of subsidized, system-locked digital phones, people who switch companies usually have to buy a new phone anyway, so they'll often sell their old one for a pittance. (Online auction houses are great for this.) You don't even need an airtime plan; FCC regs require cellular carriers to accept 911 calls even from unactivated phones. And if it's not quite that much of an emergency, most carriers have a special number (like *CALL) that will allow you to place calls from an unactivated phone using a credit card; you'll pay outrageous airtime rates (like $2 a minute), but it will still probably be cheaper than buying a prepaid disposable phone and airtime just in case something like this turns up. And there's no waste; in fact, you're reducing waste, by reusing a phone that would probably otherwise be thrown away.

    There is one real potential use I can see for disposable phones, which could be a major plus or a major minus depending on how you look at it; it could make it much easier to legally place truly anonymous cellphone calls.

  • what a fucking gross idea.
    sorry, that's all.
  • Damn...that was funny as hell!
  • This was funny as hell!
  • Except that you can't make a phone call on underwear.

    No, don't tell me. I don't want to know. I really don't.
    ---
  • A glance through the article reveals that tampering with the case (it would basically be a piece of laminated, flexible circuit-board with no "true", hard-plastic case) would ice the whole phone. I guess, where there's a will there's a way, but still, it looks like they've got tamper-proofing in mind in their design.

    Also, side-note, is it just me, or have most of the folks who posted in response to this not read the article? Whatever happened to looking before leaping?
  • American society promotes enough waste as it is. Please, let the insanity stop!
  • I would be careful about using these as emergency phones. I would think that to cut costs, transmit power would be decreased. Your range might not stretch too far from the tower.

    I just hope this doesn't wind up raising the cost of a regular phone.

  • 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. :)
  • Please don't tell me these things will actually get thrown out! Sure, both the inventor and the product sound cool, but we really shouldn't be making more one-use only gadgets. This seems like a poster-product for a European policy (proposed or actual?) I once heard about: making product manufacturers take responsibility for the garbage they produce (packaging, etc.). As things stand now, society subsidizes manufacturers who produce garbage-intensive (and other resource-hogging) goods. They make the stuff, get the profit, we have some fun, and then we pay for it be hauled away and stored (as well as a bunch of other "externalities"). Shouldn't the burden be shared a little more equitably? Since manufacturers never have to deal with the disposing of their items, there are no incentives for them to reduce garbage production. How different would Ms. Altschul's throw-away-cell-phone look if she knew that she would have to pay for dealing with them after they're used? This kind of thing sure makes the U.S. look hypocritical when we try to tell the rest of the world to slow population growth or forest felling.

  • 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...)
  • Folks, read the article. 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... and then give back to the company for recharging (and hopefully get a discount on new phones). Too bad about the outgoing calls only thing, that and the brain cancer and memory loss.
  • 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.
    ------
  • sorry if this appears to be flamebait, but i'd like to suggest that you read the article before making uneducated posts.

  • 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.

  • There's still the Grand Canyon (Score:3)

    by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Monday November 08, 1999 @02:36PM (#1551293)
    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?



  • It's called anything made by Nokia....


    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!
  • 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 [164.195.100.11]

    return 0;
    //(BLiP)

  • Garbage: People rarely examine facts! (Score:4)

    by xtal ( 49134 ) on Monday November 08, 1999 @02:43PM (#1551298)

    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!

  • So did I. Same deal with regular ol' "flashlight" batteries. No option but the trash can.
    (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.)

  • they also have a 330V 120-160uF capacitor

    fun for the whole family :)

  • >"It's the ultimate in-your-face advertising," Ms. Altschul said.
    >
    >That just says it all doesn't it?

    Yeah, she needs to have more attitude and be pro-active in this paradigm

    Rich

    Perhaps she needs sun glasses
  • 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.

  • Except that, for anonymonity (sp?) and privacy, this is the *anti* DIVX. And wasn't that the whole issue with DIVX?


  • The anonymity would be of great value, though most people don't know (or care) how much their privacy is invaded.


    It provides anonymity for the caller only, as the called person has to be at a real phone number in order to be reached.



    Also, it would probably be very easy to identify who owns a disposable phone by keeping a log of what numbers they dial, assuming the phones are each used at least several times. Everyone has their own individual calling patterns.



    If you really want anonymity there's always payphones.


  • 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." [microsoft.com]
  • 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.
  • Not useless, in fact it satisfies the #2 reason for having a cell phone (making this up of course): for emergencies. What's #1, you ask. Tie between work and to call friends (and other means of fun). There are people who buy a cell phone, stick it in their glove compartment, and pay their bills every month even though they don't use it. This kind of phone is perfect for them. So I'm not going to bother asking if it has a cellular modem connection or if you can convert it to play Doom, because that deosn't matter. What matters is that it serves an important purpose well.

    This isn't going to get moderated up, is it?

    Kenneth

  • 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.

  • Since the demand for telephones or other things such as fax machines that use the phone system continually (continuously?)threatens to outstrip the supply of unique numbers available for assigning to them, it seems pretty obvious that they couldn't be used for incoming calls, as phone numbers aren't plentiful enough to be disposable.

  • Imagine a world where all we had was disposable cell phones, no LCD's, no Incoming Calls... hey wait a minute.
  • disposable laptops
    mm!

    (mine needs disposing.. grr.. that POJ)
  • Does the world really need this?
  • Are there any prepaids that aren't like this, I know the MCI Worldcom phones are(made by Uniden) I would really like a phone that could be used for emergincies without the $x a month fee for unused minutes, At least the minutes add up when you don't use them, but it doesn't help that the minutes are about 80 cents each!
  • I agree with this.

    This development is just disgusting. How much industial capacity ( == (pollution output && resource consumption) ) does this represent? We've got to get a handle on ourselves, folks, our thoughtless urge to consume will do us in materially in the long run, if not spiritually in the short run.


    -Helping Satan Daily, in small portions
  • 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.
  • Can somebody tell me the usefulness of a 'disposable cell phone' ?

    This is a very bad idea because this anonymity afforded by these phones allow it to be used for not very nice tasks, and do I even have to mention how un-enviromentally sound this is ?

    Whatever the case, I'm happy with my Nokia 6188, these disposables probably don't come with all the nice features that real cells do, text messaging, call display, call waiting, address book, vibrator option, and of course the games : ).
  • 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 had fun with one of these on a school trip, after the pictures of new york were taken, I shorted the capacitor with the metal end of a pencil. Nice loud POP, right in the middle of some museum. Security came over toward me and my friends, and we slipped into the elevator...Some kid thought throwing it into some river after charging the flash would kill some ducks, but happily it didn't work :)
  • 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 have to agree with your analysis generally, but you miss one important point. Most eco-freaks also support the elimination of nuclear, coal, natural gas, etc., power plants and instead support replacing those power plants with wind, solar, geothermic, hydro, and other eco-friendly power plants. When the energy is "free" (solar) the extra energy required to recycle becomes moot. The root of the problem is not recycling, but power consumption.

    Not to mention the fact that serious eco-freaks do not consume any fuel when they haul their bottles to be recycled; because they are pedalling a bicycle.
  • Better yet... modem adapters! Totally (well... almost) anonymous surfing, chatting, etc., though that would chew up cell time fast.

    Yeah, but what happens if your phone runs out of minutes in the middle of a download? That could be inconvenient, to say the least.

  • 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.
  • I think you're missing the point here. Disposable cell phones mean those phones are thrown out *more often* than normal phones. With a standard phone, you act to "reduce" waste by not throwing it out shortly after purchasing it (not to mention "reusing" it for a greater length of time).

    The criticism here isn't "we should be recycling disposable cell phones instead of just throwing them out" -- the argument is that we should promote tools which have a longer life span so that we don't have to dispose of them (by throwing them out or recycling them) for as long a period as possible.
  • Well, I used to be on prepaid with Bellsouth Mobility DCS (East TN region). The prepaid cards were either $25 or $50 (with the first card purchase required to be $50, with $25 of that for an activation fee) and the minutes were 50 cents (75 for LD), and (get this!) it wouldn't allow me to make ANY 800/888/877/900 calls (why? who knows...) The cards didn't roll over UNLESS you bought more time before the existing time expired (90 days for $50 cards, 60 days for $25). If you went 60 days with a $0 balance, then the account was deactivated. Oh well, that was better than a $700 deposit for normal rate plans (I had no credit rating then)
    _______
    Scott Jones
    Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT
    Game Show Fan / C64 Coder
  • Ok, folks, we need some facts here. A lot of people are claiming (though it sounds a lot more like hoping) that those cardboard-box cameras are reused/reprocessed/re-something (other than recycled ! the distinction is very important).

    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).
  • One of the main uses I can see for this is for kids. Give your kid a throwaway phone to keep in their backpack and they can use it to call for help/a ride/etc.
    In Israel they have cell phones that have programmable buttons fordialing home and the police that can only be used for outgoing calls. That's an excellent idea that would be perfect for this.

  • Fun for Geeks With Attitude(tm) (Score:4)

    by Chemical Serenity ( 1324 ) on Monday November 08, 1999 @05:06PM (#1551388) Homepage Journal
    Heh... I remember doing things like that back in the day during electronics class. Ahh, the fun we used to have sticking 16v capacitors into the lab-bench sockets. Had the whole room go off like a string of firecrackers one time (BTW - Tantalum caps, although more expensive, make a much more satisfying *snap* than little bitty barrel caps, but cause shrapnel.)

    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 [userfriendly.org] makink these device when leetle boy, da?)

    What You'll Need

    • A brain. (You'd be amazed at how many people don't get past this point)

    • A capacitor. The best types are the big old barrel caps from circa 1960-1970 TV sets... you know, the ones that look and feel about the weight of a relay baton. Polarized or non doesn't matter. Axial (one lead on each side) or radial (both leads on one side) are both fine, but radials take just a bit more work.

    • Tin/Aluminum Foil. Not a whole bunch, just raid your mom's kitchen cabinents, or order some chinese food and use the tin from thier plates. As long as it's conductive, can be easily wrapped a cylindrical object, and cheap, it'll do.

    • Electrical Tape. You MIGHT be able to substitute duct tape, but apparently some substrates can become conductive under certain circumstances. Best to play safe and get the genuine article (the black rubbery stuff).

    • Some wire, soldering iron and solder. Not much solder is needed, nor wire. In fact, if you have an axial (one lead on each end) capacitor with long enough leads, you may not need these at all.

    • A continuity meter. The best in the world are made by Fluke Industries [fluke.com]. No self-respecting electronic/electrical engineer would be caught dead without one. Of course, deletantes may use whatever cheesy little analogue meters they find in thier gran-pappy's toolkit.

    • A power source. The best are ones are bench supplies which can generate a specific voltage, but even a cheap-ass wall-plugged model will do in a pinch. Try to get it as close to the rating of the capacitor as possible. I've found that a couple car batteries in series makes a good 24v or +/-12v supply in a pinch, so long as they're kept charged and outdoors when not in use. Oh, and try not to spill their contents on your Nikes.
    What You Do
    1. Read the Fine Print. I absolve myself of all issues that may arise from you assembling and using this little beast. Don't blame me if you use this on the head jock of your school and end up getting a boot up your ass. You're a big boy and/or grrl and you know what you're getting yourself into. CAVEAT ENGINEO.

    Discharge 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)

  • 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.

    This might be true for some things (I'm not sure about cellphones) but it usually takes more energy to make a new thing than to recycle an old one, when you consider all the costs of getting new raw materials. It's an often repeated fact that recycling a pop can saves enough energy to run a TV for an hour.

    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.

    Sure, but "Throw away" could be tacked onto the end of the list as an even worse option. Selling phones that are meant to be used for several years would fit under "reuse".

    --
    grappler

  • 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!

    We're not talking about plastic bottles here. Nobody's suggesting that old cellphones should be melted down and turned into new cellphones. They should be reusable without any high energy processing at all -- just upload a new authorization code to it.

    This is wasteful, no matter how you look at it. Whether we have landfill space for it isn't nearly as relevant as the fact that you're taking ten bucks worth of perfectly good electronics and losing it. Maybe that doesn't seem like a big deal, but in the words of professional musician Geddy Lee, "Ten bucks is ten bucks."


    ---
  • 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 :)

  • Exactly. (Score:2)

    by hawk ( 1151 )
    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 :) ]
  • >Either that, or require car-phone users to post
    >their cell numbers on the outside of their cars.

    Nah, not the regular number. A special one to kill the engine and engage the brakes . . .
  • You don't have to go ruining artic environments, either. There's _lots_ of room to go under, just bury it in the proper geology.
    Yeah, I like the idea from Brin's Earthclan books, where environmentally-aware cultures bury their trash in subduction zones - recycling via plate tectonics.
    When the cost goes up, so will the cost of disposable products.
    Where do you live, that the cost of disposal is included in the cost of a product? Where I am, trash and recyclables pickup is funded by property taxes and is completely unrelated to how much I throw out. How would you include disposal costs in the purchase price? I guess it would have to be a local sales tax, since the cost of disposal could vary widely from place to place.
  • 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)

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