Tech Decline Week: Landlines and Phone Numbers

Landlines

I think the only time I talk on my house phone is when I'm hanging up on solicitors. Yes, I do hang up on them. Sorry. I just don't like to pick up the phone and have people try to sell things to me. I understand we all need to make a living someway, but I just can't take it. 

In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 26% of homes used only wireless phones. This number will probably continue to grow over the next few years as more people do away with their land line and rely on their cell phones. 

Phone Numbers

How many usernames do you have? For Twitter? A blog? A credit card account? This may be surprising but phone numbers might someday be gone. Most of us just type in a name into our phone to call someone or to text them. With new services with Google, Facebook, and Skype, we may be asking for usernames someday instead of their ten digits. 

Oh, by the way. This is important! I don't know if you know this, but cell phone numbers have recently gone public. That means that solicitors can now call your cell phone. If you happen to be like me and don't want people calling you to sell you something in the middle of your day out, then call the number below and follow the directions.

1-888-382-1222

Goodbye Passer By

Have you ever thought about how many picture you are in? Not just your pictures but other peoples pictures? How many special moments of someone else's life you were caught in? Well now it's possible to get other people out of your pictures.

Scalado, a Swedish photography company has developed an app that allows someone to remove the people walking by in an app. This app makes it easier to have pictures at special landmarks or places without people in the background. 

The app takes several shots and then removes any objects that seem to be moving. The items are marked in a screen while allow the user to remove which ones they want.

Tattoos and Phones

I'm not to sure about this gadget. I mean, in theory it's a cool idea. It is. I just would never do it. I think it's kind of creepy to be honest. It reminds me of big brother for some reason.

A Finnish company has developed a magnetized tattoo that could function as an alert system for phones. It can vibrate for incoming calls, low batteries, or upcoming calender events. It's created by applying a material to a person's skin and then linking the material to a phone. The vibrations can be sent in a number of different patterns to alert the user to many different messages. 

Read more about it here and let me know what you think.

Touch free Touchscreen

I've always thought the purpose of a touchscreen was to work when you touched it, but apparently I'm wrong. Either that, or Sony doesn't think so because they created a new screen for their new phone Xperia Sola smartphone. The screen on this phone can be operated just by bringing your finger close to the screen. 

The technology allows the user to simply hover over the screen to move the cursor and touch the screen to load. This could be nice if you have dirty or gross fingers, but I think I would end up sending a text I didn't want to send by mistake and end up forever hating the phone. 

What do you think? Is this cool or just a little too far?

Baby Monitor

I'm personally pretty excited about this gadget because I feel like I might need it soon. No, not for myself, but for my sister. My sister got married in October, so I fear sometime in my near future I'm going to be an Aunt. What a scary thought!

This is a baby monitor for the iPhone. Withings, a French company developed this gadget to help parents keep an eye on their baby. The white device pictured above is a monitor. It has a 3 megapixel camera. The camera can switch to infrared LED in a dim light, be zoomed in, and can will alert parents to room temperature and humidity changes. 

Red X's

I received my first cell phone as a Christmas present when I was 16. I remember that morning very well, because I had been complaining to my parents for months. All my friends in school had a cell phone. In face, most of them had cell phones since we were in middle school. I complained almost everyday. When we went to the mall, I would purposely walk by the Verizon Wireless store and stare at the phones in the window. My mom got annoyed quickly, but she held out, telling me "You're too young to have a phone. What are you even going to do with it?"

I was told if I kept my grades up, kept my room clean, and behaved, I could have a phone when I turned 16 because I would be driving soon. When I turned 16 in September, no phone. I had to wait til December 25. I was opening gifts from my stocking when a bright orange pop can snuggie fell out. I looked at it. "Uh, thanks?" I said disappointed. I picked it up and realized it was too heavy for a cloth snuggie. I looked inside and a pretty little phone was sitting there. I had a big smile on my face. Mom said I was still too young for it. 

About two months after I got my phone, I dropped it in a puddle on accident while it was raining. The red X's that were on the battery were gone. It was damaged. Sure enough, I went to turn it on and it wouldn't work. First phone. Gone. I had to wait for a new one.

I bring this up, because it would have saved me a lot of trouble to have had something like this back then...

A company in California named Liquipel has developed water resistant nanocoating. It's suppose to protect smartphones from water intrusion. It's just a coating that is applied as a vapor and doesn't affect the usability of the phone or make it any bigger. The vapor penetrates the whole device and gives the phone a longer life span. Check out the video. It's pretty cool.

Do you want to know more? Do you want to get your smartphone treated? 

Check it out here.

Phone Week!

I was trying to find things to post about for this week today, and I came across a lot of phone gadgets and gizmos. So, this week is going to be dedicated to phones and the new things we can do with them. Most of the gadgets are for iPhones, so I'm sorry if you have a different phone.

Apps Galore

Have you ever seen someone walk into a wall while texting? Or perhaps you've had someone run into you with their phone to their face as they updated their facebook status? Well, here's an app for those people, or for you if you are one of them.

For anyone who has an iPhone or some type of smartphone, you know that there are tons of apps that you can download. Well, a new app has been developed that makes it easier for those who like to text and walk at the same time. This app called the Transparent Screen projects an image of your path behind the regular functions of your phone. The app uses the camera to show the image of your route and obstacles in your path.

Who doesn't have a cellphone?

   It’s hard to imagine a time where we didn't have the choice of simply picking up the phone and calling our best friend, our mothers, or customer service when something goes wrong. This is especially true for those of us known as Generation X or Y. Even my mother, a baby boomer sometimes says, “What did we do before telephones were invented?” Let's face it, once upon a time people didn't have land lines, or cellphones, or smartphones. They simply wrote a letter, put a stamp on it, and sent it via the mail.

   Telephones have drastically changed our day to day lives. They make our lives so much easier because we can call anyone we want, anytime, anywhere. Phones make it possible to call our friend to just talk about the weather, to contact a loved one visiting another country, to call in sick from work.

   From where they started, telephones have definitely evolved and possibly even consumed our lives. Land lines have been updated and evolved into cellphones. Once cellphones looked like bricks and now they have been transformed into sleek touch phones that have so many gadgets and gizmos that people rarely even use their phones to call people.

   Phones now contain apps, internet, email, cameras, facebook, twitter, tumblr, games, anything you can think of. Above all things, people now use their phones to text more than anything else. Be honest, haven’t you ever seen those teenagers walking through the store, face glued to their phone about to run into something? Heck, my own mother was texting at the dinner table last night even after yelling at my sister and me so many times. After all, why call people when you can just send a text?