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, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday February 18 2020, @03:10PM
But they aren't, in this case, and it isn't about something so simple as greater or lesser access to information.
When your every move is tracked, for instance, that doesn't necessarily give you any extra information at all. It's giving someone else, someone unknown, someone who certainly doesn't have your best interests in mind, all that information. It's not necessarily helpful to you at all, could turn positively harmful and probably will, but on the other hand it /is/ necessarily harmful to society as a whole, to the species, even if it somehow benefits you personally.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?