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The evening current events show As it Happens on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) reports that American engineer Justine Haupt is the creator of a rotary-dial mobile phone.
Listen to the full 5m39s radio interview or read a shortened transcript on-line.
Justine Haupt, who created her own cellphone with a rotary dial, said she did so because she doesn't like how hyper-connected people have become in the world of smartphones.
"You can't browse the internet, it can't text, and all of that is intentional because I have a problem with how hyper-connected everyone is nowadays.
[...]Haupt, a 34-year-old space engineer, explains that although the phone operates on a 3G cellular network, it is not a smartphone.
"It's as un-smart as it can be, intentionally."
Haupt aims to use the phone on a daily basis and tried to make it as compact as possible, so it could fit in a pocket.
The phone does integrate some modern features, such as programmable shortcut buttons for calling specific numbers, a power switch, and a curved e-paper screen that displays basic information such as missed calls.
Though only briefly mentioned in the interview, the phone incorporates open source hardware from Adafruit Industries.
Full project description and documentation can be found on Haupt's webpage: http://justine-haupt.com/rotarycellphone/index.html
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday February 17 2020, @06:34PM
I remember when I was a child playing one day with the receiver and just tapping out random sequences - wasn't trying to do anything except figure out why the dial tone would go away and then come back again, and trying to figure out how long it would take for it to get back to the dial tone. Must've either done ten in a row or hit some other magic switching sequence because eventually an operator got on the line and asked me who I was... she then proceeded to tell me sternly to get off the line. So I did.
This sig for rent.