Editorial: Look ma, no hands

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	Editorial: Look ma, no hands	By Larry Garfield, Thursday 27 May 2004

Larry Garfield continues to muse on different directions that the phone form factor could take in the future. This time he sees one with no handheld, or even number pad.

Recently I was perusing infoSync's coverage of Bluetooth headsets, including the recently announced new trio of headsets from Jabra. One in particular struck me as odd at first. The Jabra BT800, due out later this year, is expected to include an on-screen caller ID, job wheel for menu options, even its own ringtones. Upon looking at it, I thought to myself "Sheesh, with all of that, why do you even need a phone?" Why indeed.

While for many users data functionality from their mobile device is important, that's not true of everyone. In fact, given recent sales data I'd say that there are more mobile voice-only users than mobile data-only or voice-and-data users. For them, especially the ones that talk a lot, an actual "phone" is redundant given the potential of modern technology. A headset-only communication device shouldn't actually be all that difficult.

Such a device would quickly and easily clip onto the ear like a Bluetooth headset, but would only have a GSM or CDMA connection. It would have a small LCD for caller ID and a Power/Call/Hangup/Switch button. Everything else would be voice activated, including switching profiles and vibrate mode. Speaker-independent voice-activation has come a long way, and shouldn't be too difficult now for a small vocabulary. Any other output by the device would be spoken. Any more complex configuration, such as editing the address book or installing ring tones (although a vibrate mode would be mandatory) could be done via a USB connection to a PC.

Software for such a "phone" would be simple, too. It wouldn't need a fancy OS from PalmSource, Microsoft, or Symbian. Some small old embedded system would be fine, or perhaps embedded Linux. No games, camera, or anything of that sort, as those would only get in the way and aren't "core" features anyway. About the only core feature that wouldn't be easy to include would be text messaging, although proper application of text-to-speech and speech-to-text software (possibly over the network) would solve that problem. The only difficult-to-implement feature would be "press one to continue" menus, for which the phone could implement its own "say one" functionality and generate the proper DTMF tone.

Not only could such a device ignore the constraints of the size of the user's hand, making it smaller, but it would be safer, too. There would be no non-hands-free mode, so it would be no excuse at all to not drive with both hands on the wheel. (Of course, you shouldn't be using the phone while driving anyway, hands-free or not, but that apparently doesn't stop anyone.) While some users may mention the still-debated hazard of having the radio that close to the head, it would be no more or less of a risk than holding a normal mobile phone there. Battery life of current headsets is good enough that such an ear-phone would be no shorter lived than a conventional compact phone, either.

It would be the ultimate "un-smart" phone. No, it wouldn't be for everyone, but it would serve a fair-sized market, not to mention having a very strong neato-cool factor. (And as we all know, that factor sells a lot of products.)