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Handhelds Hardware

Using MEMS to Miniaturize Mobile Phones 135

Posted by michael from the maxwell-smart dept.
securitas writes: "The NY Times has a feature on using microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMS) in cell phones to replace bulky passive components like the filters, resonators and duplexers that make up most of the size of today's phones. In theory, they say, you could have a cell phone in a ring on your finger. Besides making everyone seem like James Bond, a ring-phone would give new meaning to the phrase 'Talk to the hand.'"
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Using MEMS to Miniaturize Mobile Phones More

Using MEMS to Miniaturize Mobile Phones

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  • Does this technology use Coltan?

    Frankly, after seeing what is going on in the Congo, I feel ashamed for even owning a cell phone.

    .
    • how about some more information on this? I've never seen anything about cell phones and the Congo...

    • Re:Coltan (Score:5, Informative)

      by Hal-9001 ( 43188 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @01:13PM (#2937922) Homepage Journal
      For people like me who had no idea what coltan is, see this article [go.com]. The short version is that columbite-tantalite (coltan) is an ore than can be refined into tantalum, which apparently is a very good dielectric for making capacitors. This means that it's not just in cell phones but probably in every electronic device you own.

      The controversy over coltan and the Congo seems to revolve around two issues. One is that Congo's neighbors seem to be exploiting its coltan resources, i.e. smuggling coltan and exporting it as their own product. Another is the environmental impact, since illegal mining operations probably care as much about the environmental impact they have as they do about the law.

      All of this so far is off-topic, but if rf MEMs could replace capacitive filters and resonators, it could help reduce the demand for coltan. This feeble attempt to be on-topic is purely speculative, though, as I am not a wireless engineer and the NYT article lacks details about the materials being used in these devices.

      • Re:Coltan (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Gordonjcp ( 186804 )
        All of this so far is off-topic, but if rf MEMs could replace capacitive filters and resonators, it could help reduce the demand for coltan. This feeble attempt to be on-topic is purely speculative, though, as I am not a wireless engineer and the NYT article lacks details about the materials being used in these devices.

        Tantalum tends to be used in low frequency and power circuits. Quite honestly, if you didn't need a mobile phone the size of a domino, you could make them a bit bigger and use plain ordinary electrolytic capacitors instead.

        Of course, they use other nasty chemicals, so you just can't win...
        • if you didn't need a mobile phone the size of a domino, you could make them a bit bigger and use plain ordinary electrolytic capacitors instead.

          Not quite. Aluminum electrolytics don't respond well at high frequencies, and in modern electronics usually the power supply filter caps have to handle quite high frequencies, since the power drawn by components varies rapidly. Ceramic caps take care of the highest frequencies, but don't store enough charge to cover everything. Electrolytics store lots of charge, but don't let it out fast enough. Tantalums are in-between, and quite often perfect.

          The rising production of cell phones did cause a severe shortage of tantalums a year or two ago. One of our customers was then designing a board with a 233MHz Pentium, where size and weight didn't matter. So instead of tantalums, they used about a dozen medium size electrolytics in parallel -- this was massively more capacitance than needed, but by adding together the slight high frequency response of all those electrolytics, they got the same effect as a couple of good tantalums. Only trouble was, when you turned power on charging up all those caps for the first time put a strain on the power supply!

    • Re:Coltan (Score:2, Informative)

      by Drakin ( 415182 )
      The proper question is does the technology use tantalum, which is the useful part of coltan.

      Funny thing... Africa isn't the major producer of the stuff. Australia is, then Africa, Brazil, Thailand, China, Canada and Malayshia.
    • Why don't you read whats actualy going on [nytimes.com] before jumping to idiotc conclusions.

      For hundreds of thousands of people in the "republic" of Congo, coltan mining is one of the few ways to make ends meet. It's actualy allowing people to eat regularly and keep from starving to death.

  • Great.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tfurrows ( 541222 ) <tfurrows@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Friday February 01, 2002 @12:52PM (#2937785)
    So now we're going to have a bunch of yuppies talking to their fingers while they drive.

    Does this mean people are going to get pulled over for talking on their cell (in areas where it's illegal), when all they were really doing was picking their nose?

    What an injustice... what a travisty....
    • Hmmm, so then will giving someone the finger now mean that you want them to call you?

      Imagine conversations with all of those expressive people who are always wave their hands:
      "I WAS wond.....and thEN I THOught..."
    • What if someone has fat fingers? How do they dial? Do you have to get your ring phone sized? Why not just do an ear piece enabled with voice recognition software.

      "Call home." It calls home.
      "Answer phone." It answers phone.
      etc.

      Seems a lot easier...

      ryan
    • Well most of these places its legal to use a hands free cell phone while driving. So just keep that ring finger on the wheel while your talking into it!
  • The phrase, "talk to the hand" ? Wired.com had an article just the other day, about a glove that translated sign language to spoken english. And a few weeks before that, I swear I saw yet another news article saying the same thing. This is getting on my nerves, I don't like my vocabulary corrupted by Jerry Springerish cliches.

  • Dildos (Score:1, Insightful)

    by October_30th ( 531777 )
    Imagine the huge impact this technology could have in the sex toy industry.

    A vibrator in a wedding ring should keep the "little missus" happy in a discrete way... ;-)

  • Ring phones (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @12:54PM (#2937798) Homepage
    Even with electronics that use a fraction of what today's phones use, to reduce the size of the phone will reduce the size of the battery you can carry with it. A ring phone can't feasibly hold more than a watch battery.

    -Restil

    • Re:Ring phones (Score:2, Informative)

      by The Gardener ( 519078 )

      . . . to reduce the size of the phone will reduce the size of the battery . . .

      "Luckily," he says dryly, "the article answers this very issue."

      Indirectly, better filtering helps reduce the size of a cellphone because lower-quality filtering results in a signal loss that is corrected by more amplification, which drains power. More power means bigger batteries and extra electronics within the phone.

      "The ultimate benefit," Mr. Mueller said, "is a smaller, lighter phone that works well and works longer between charges."

      The Gardener

      • Indirectly, better filtering helps reduce the size of a cellphone because lower-quality filtering results in a signal loss that is corrected by more amplification, which drains power.

        That would be fine if your phone only received. To transmit, you need real power (5W?) which drains even palm-sized batteries fast. And I don't believe that the driver transistors and filters needed on the transmitter can shrink that small anyway.

        Cell-phones have to have receive always turned on (so it can receive a call at any time), but when idle they only turn on transmit for a few milliseconds at a time to identify themselves to the network. My wife's cell phone batteries last for days in this mode. But when she starts talking, a full charge goes in half an hour.

    • Re:Ring phones (Score:3, Interesting)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      With the power reductoin that will come from this, maybe they can power it from your body movement, like a watch? or from the bodies own electrical "aura"? Or from your shows, and the electrical signal is carried through your body?
      Or a solar hat! I say that last one because I would love the fidora to come back.
      • Or a solar hat! I say that last one because I would love the fidora to come back

        I second that!! I had hoped that RedHat would have done this too, but a red fidora really isn't as cool as a black one :)

    • ever see the saint?
      and that phone he used?
      that was a pda combination?
      I want one.
      When are we going to get those?
      • That is a real phone from nokia. You can have it now. There are also several palm/phone combinations available.
      • To specify the second poster, phone/pda in Saint was Nokia Communicator 9000 - rather old one, by the way, has been out for years, and they have already made several new versions, major updates being 9110 and 9210, I'm not sure whether they are GSM 900 or 900/1800 phones, but are quite real. Be prepared to shell out quite a few bucks for it, though, here in Finland 9210 costs about one thousand euros.
  • Actually, One ring says I'm committed to my wife. The other Ring shows my commitment to technology!
  • during talking to your ring you accidentally swallow it. I wonder what will the other person hear.
    • Funny you should mention that....the other day I was having a conversation on my cellphone with a friend - he had called me while I was in a store - I left the store and opened my car door to get in. While trying to open the car door with handfulls of shopping and the cell phone wedged under my shoulder, the phone slipped and fell directly through the grates of a drain and into the water below. When I spoke to my friend later he said he heard a splash then muffled, under-water-sounding cries (me swearing loudly). So, I guess it would sound similar to that if someone swallowed a phone! BTW: the phone is supplied by my company, so I got a nice new one :-)
    • I hardly ever actualy hold my phone up to my ears these days, there's really no reason to anymore. Just get a headset thing.
  • Something like this would be excellent for having the phone embedded right in your head.
    Now if they just had some kind of thought-based dialing system...

  • log/pass = password/password
  • An American, a German and a Japanese guy are golfing one day and, at the
    third hole, they hear a phone ring. The American excuses himself, puts
    his left thumb to his ear and his left pinky finger to his mouth and
    proceeds to have a phone conversation. When he is done, he looks at the
    other two and says, "Oh, that's the latest American technology in cell
    phones. I have a chip in my thumb and one in my pinky and the antenna is
    in my hat. Great stuff, huh?" They continue golfing until the ninth
    hole when, again, they hear a phone ring. The German tilts his head to
    one side and proceeds to have a conversation with someone in German.
    When he finishes, he explains to the other two that he has the latest in
    German cell phone technology. "A chip in my tooth, a chip in my ear and
    the antenna has been inserted into my spine...Ah, the wonders of German
    know-how!" At the thirteenth hole, a phone rings again and upon hearing
    it, the Japanese guy disappears into some nearby bushes. The German and
    the American look at each other and then walk over and peer into the
    bushes. In the middle of the bushes is the Japanese guy, squatting with
    his pants down around his ankles. "What on earth are you doing?!" asks
    the American. The Japanese guy looks up and replies, "Waiting for a
    fax."
    • The American excuses himself, puts his left thumb to his ear and his left pinky finger to his mouth and proceeds to have a phone conversation.

      This technology has already been patented. By the Japanese [patent.ne.jp].

  • yah (Score:1)

    by TheRain ( 67313 )
    Besides making everyone seem like James Bond, a ring-phone would give new meaning to the phrase 'Talk to the hand.'"

    that was a really lame joke. I'm sorry I repeated it.

    thank you.
  • Miniaturize them from what? Cell phones are so small these days I'm surprised people can even find them in their pockets along with their keys, change, and whatever.

    I say bring back the big manly phones that look like radio handsets!

  • The problem I have...erm...had with small phones is that they're terribly fragile. It's as if they're expected to be carried in a padded purse or something. Makes your wonder why they even made it so small if you need carry those little phones in bulky thick plastic belt clips etc.

    Once they make a small phone like that out of something nice and hard, whatever it is, I'll be happy.

    For example, the Motorola i1000plus is quite durable, although big. Now compar it to a StarTec, smaller phone, but put the belt clip on and it's just as big. Don't even try to wear it without the clip. It's ultra fragile. On the other hand I've had the i1000 in my pocket, no clip no protector nothing for quite some time and no problems at all.

    What good is a cell phone 'ring' if it's broken?
    • I have a Nokia 8260, the thing is tiny, but it's built like a rock. I dropped my original one several feet (out of a dorm loft) at least 10 or 20 times before it finally gave out (from just a 2 foot fall!) But it had been rattling for months before that.

      Anyway, they are quite durable. I'd imagine those flip phones would be quite fragile though.
  • MEMS will have so many different uses inside of your body from doing things such as an insulin pump (imagine never having to take insulin shots) to fixing congenital heart defects without such invasive surgery. This seems like an interesting but rather fluffy use of it at this time. Plus if you think about it, cell phones are so annoying now, imagine it if they were all built into your body... Shaking someone's hand whose phone is set to vibrate mode and they get an incoming call?


  • Is this to facilitate our ever-increasing divorce rates? Now she can call to inform you of the impending alimony payments right from the wedding band!

    Suddenly, the solitary life doesn't seem so bad.

  • Of course, not everything can be miniaturized... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by valdis ( 160799 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @01:02PM (#2937854)
    As several people have noted, you still have a problem with battery size. Also, you have a minimum size for the speaker and microphone to produce a usable signal (the only reason in-the-ear headsets can be THAT small is because they ARE in your ear - to be heard from an inch away from your ear they need be bigger).

    And was that guy in the other car flipping you the bird, or just extending his antenna?
    • Agreed. A ring-phone will be too much. I already have problem with newer, smaller nokia phones that got a keypad made for an alien with impossible angle in their fingers. That's not counting the engineering problem of where would you put the keypad? the speaker? the mic? the battery?

      Of course, all can be solved with the mighty bluetooth. But having separate keypad and everything kinda defeats the purpose.
    • No your honor, I wasn't flashing anybody, I just needed to extend my antenna!
      I imagin cell phone would end up in your ear, until the embed them into peoples teeth, anyway.
  • In theory, they say, you could have a cell phone in a ring on your finger. Before they get things TOO small, they had better make some major improvements in voice interfaces, and figure out how to miniatuarize those components, as well.

  • Shameless plugs (Score:5, Informative)

    by Doctor K ( 79640 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @01:04PM (#2937871) Homepage
    I am working in the MEMs area these days. So here are some shameless plugs.

    Here [physicstoday.org]
    is an general interest article from the group in which I work with some details oriented towards these types of mesoscopic MEMs.

    Here [physicstoday.org]
    is a neat picture of a Mesoscopic MEMs device (an acceleratometer resting on top the middle part of the "8" in a 1998 penny.

    And though my research at Berkeley wasn't MEMS oriented, Berkeley MEMS is pretty active. Here [berkeley.edu] is a link to that.

    As the article points out, MEMS are finding applications in cell phones because it is easy to make very small RF filters using inertial effects to provide inductive-like impedences. (In the past, the inductive like parts of a cell-phone filter would either be done with spiral inductors, which are unwieldly or via other microwave circuit voodoo.)

    However, beyond cell phones is a grab bag of MEMs applications already at or beyond the prototype stage:
    - Car air bag detectors (the above accelerometer)
    - Laser gyroscopes
    - Projection displays (pixel mirrors arrays)
    - Optical fiber switches
    - Medical applications (microfluidics, bio-chips, ...)
    - Remote sensing (minaturized microphones, or in the future, smart dust)

    Enjoy
    Kevin

  • Phone cards (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ArcticChicken ( 172915 )
    I imagine someday that, when you buy a phone card, the card itself will double as the phone.

  • Implants (Score:4, Funny)

    by Zeinfeld ( 263942 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @01:05PM (#2937879) Homepage
    A while back some of us were sitting round at the IETF discussing the various techno gadgets we had bought recently. Jeff Schiller went first and showed everyone a ham radio the size of a matchbox. Then Steve Bellovin showed people his watch running Linux. All I had was a cheezy Palm VII running a Lisp machine emulator.

    The last guy to go is one of those crypto dudes who wears all black. He holds out his hand and taps his palm a few times. Then after a brief pause he starts speaking to someone as if on the phone, which it turned out he was, this dude had a cell phone implanted into his palm and skull!

    Anyway we continued drinking for some time (it was IETF after all) and the dude asked us to watch his laptop for a while while he went to the little boys room. We had some more drinks and were about to leave when someone pointed out that the dude had not returned yet. So I went off to the bathroom to find him.

    I find the dude bent over the can with his legs stretched out and a bog roll stuck up his ass. Immediately I think the dude has been mugged. "Hey whats up, you OK?" I ask. "No I'm fine", the dude replies "I'm just waiting for a fax".

  • .. The wife gets a secret call every time the ring comes off? ;)
    If it takes the form of jewlery, it would be an earing. But mor likely it will be behind the ear, like a hearing aid so you can just talk and hear without holding a darn thing. Of course you can do that now, you just have the phone clipped to your belt.
    Basically the ring analogy was just a long way to go for a bad joke. Not that there is ever a short way to a bad joke...
    • Just think, you combine the cell phone ring with that "mood ring" technology. Then the secret call to your wife would be to inform her that you are horney. Her cell mood ring could call you back and infom you that she has a head ache.

  • Un-needed size reduction? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kopper187 ( 59901 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @01:08PM (#2937899)
    Even if the implementation takes 3-5 years, further reducing the size of cell phones may only be beneficial in a few markets. Most certainly, the US market will not need super small cell phones in the comming years. The Asian and EU markets already sell phones that on average are significantly smaller than those sold in most of the US market. Yes, those are GSM phones, but if the American consumers wanted smaller phones, the manufacturers would quickly swap out the GSM circuits in put CDMA in place. Unfortunatly (for some of us) the average American still tends to like their products to be larger (at least acording to many market research companies.)

    Where this technology might be more appropriate is in the imbedded markets. For the Auto-makers, the size of On-Star style equipment could be greatly reduced and in-dash cell phones could have a much nicer and simpler integration.

    Though its quite cool to see electornics reaching the miniature level, at some point (which we may have already reached) it will be impracticle to reduce the package size of many consumer electronics. Do you really want a 1 cubic inch sized cell phone that you loose once a week and spend $200 to replace?

    As for MEMS, the medical applications [manufacturingcenter.com] are much more interesting.

    • Smaller phones won't work (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The reason US phones are larger is because a smaller phone won't work. The lower US population density means a more sparse cellular network, which means a longer (on average) radio link, which requires more RF power. Better frequency filtering can help some, but there is a fundamental limit (described by the Shannon-Hartley theorem) to how low the power can go. The main reason phones have gotten smaller in the last 5 years is because continued build-out has made the networks denser.
      Simply put, a ring-size phone is just plain impossible with anything remotely resembling current physical plant and battery technology.
      • Not true, size of the phones does NOT correlate with population density - not every area on Europe is ultra densely populated.

        If info I found on a quick google search is right, US has average population density of something like 30/km^2 or little less, and for example here in Finland we have average of
        _17_ per square kilometer, yet we have biggest relative cell phone amount in the whole world, and yes, those phones are the miniature european GSM version - and they DO work almost anywhere, the two biggest operators have probably something like 99% coverage, or more.
    • Okay, you must be smoking crack on GSM vs CDMA.

      By 2G standards, GSM won in the US (even though its still in development). GSM is easily upgradable to GPRS (2.5G) and then switch out to WCDMA.

      The article is some respects is retarded anyway. Its not the radio circuits that take up all the real estate, its the processors and integrated circuits. Most of the filtering is done by DSP anyway. Oh yeah, and the radio only takes up a fraction of the space anyway.

      Its not rocket science when you consider what they have done to shrink the size of cell phones: put everything in integrated circuits and software. There is a reason why phones are now using zero IF heterodyne receivers (even though they are a forking pain in the ass). Now RF MEMs ACTIVE circuits will make a *huge* difference - but not on circuit real estate - but on actually being able to make a good 3G radio without sacrificing quality.

      And CDMA power control sucks!
      • I wasn't trying to say anything related to GSM vs. CDMA. I personally prefer GSM by a long shot. I was simply trying to point out that the only difference between the very small phones found in Asia and the EU, is GSM and that if there was sufficient US market demand, they could be switched to CDMA and made for sale. I'll use Cingular Wireless as the example. In the Bay Area of California, GSM service is available and Cingular uses it. They offer all models of Nokia and Ericcson phones, including their smalest ones (granted, the Bay Area market has many more customers who would be more willing to purchase smaller phones.) Here in Rochester, NY, where there is no GSM service, Cingular only offeres the CDMA Nokias and Ericcsons which are probably the largest models offered by those two manufacturers. From Nokia's standpoint, there is insufficient market demand to offer their smaller GSM phones in CDMA format. This would be true for the majority of the country as only the Pacific coast and perhaps a few other cities have GSM service.

        • Okay, I totally took your comments in the wrong way.

          One of the problems with CDMA phones is the simple fact that its more complicated (frequency hopping plus more complicated linear modulation) compared to GSM's simplicity (time division with GMSK - frequency modulation basically).

          GSM is very simple, extremely well researched, and been in development for a very long time. Ericsson and Nokia are on their 6th or 7th generation of platforms, far ahead of 2nd or 3rd generation CDMA handsets. Thats why the GSM phones are smaller, not because its a market thing. Even the Samsung phones are huge by GSM standards!
    • Do you really want a 1 cubic inch sized cell phone that you loose once a week and spend $200 to replace?

      Yes. I want a 1 cubic inch sized cell phone with a watch strap. Then I won't ever lose it.

      The Motorola T193 (a GSM Voicestream phone) I have is nicely sized - fits in the palm of my hand and pretty unobtrusively in my jacket pocket. It's not ridiculously small like the Nokia 8290. But I know I'm going to leave it somewhere and walk off without it eventually. I've never bought a PDA because I know it would suffer the same fate.

      But put all of that (phone, PDA) in a watch case with decent voice recognition software, and you have a product that I'll sell your soul to buy.

      jvance

    • Do you really want a 1 cubic inch sized cell phone that you loose once a week and spend $200 to replace?

      I doubt that one would be capable of loosing such a cell phone unless, as another poster suggested, it came with some sort of wrist strap. However, it would be very easy to lose such a small phone.

      Congratulations! You have been participant #21 in my campaign to rid Slashdot of this error.

    • I was in Tokyo in August and London in December and I honestly didn't see anything smaller than what I can buy right down the street. I visited a couple cell phone shops here and there, though they all seemed to offer the same phones.

      In Japan, phones tended to be a little bigger than Motorola's flip phones (v.series, startac, etc) (taller more than wide though and less deep) and tended to have more features packed in. They also seemed to make 100 variations of every model for fashion purposes.

      In London, phones were basically identical to what is found in the US with the exception of an Ericsson and a couple Samsungs.

      Of course, in the Bay Area, we have GSM and PCS available which may not be the case in other parts of the country. Maybe in your area they are still selling brick phones, but around here you can pick up a Motorola v.series, Nokia 8800 series, Samsung A series and Ericcson T series (well the T28 World which is the smallest of the series anyway.)
  • This makes me wonder... what happens when the phone rings while masturbation?

    If these things come with a vibration (silent ring) function, I'd be calling myself all day long.

  • Blurring the line... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Souffle ( 2155 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @01:16PM (#2937942)
    Great strides were made for crazy people when cell phone users started walking around with headsets appearing to talk to themselves. Now it will be even more difficult to tell the difference between technophiles and crazy people!
    • Now it will be even more difficult to tell the difference between technophiles and crazy people!

      I don't understand. You speak as though there was some sort of a difference to begin with.

  • you could have a cell phone in a ring on your finger...give new meaning to the phrase 'Talk to the hand.'"

    You mean kinda like a miniaturized one of these [slashdot.org]?
  • and I can just think my words thus hiding the fact that I am actually talking on the phone.

    Of course I would have to avoid most public places when talking to my girlfriend. I would hate for her to hear WOW WHAT A NICE ASS ON THAT!

    Seriously are we down to this as being "stuff that matters"?
  • Gives a new meaning to the "custom ring" for your cell phone.

  • It could be useful, actually (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kevinadi ( 191992 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @01:24PM (#2937983)
    Although a ring-sized phone will be a practical impossibility, it can be used in a more practical way if it is combined with something else.

    The current "best" PDA-phone combination is arguably the Nokia 9210 [nokia.com] (or yet-to-be-released 9290 in the US). Although the size is perfectly ok for myself, the weight is not. A ring-sized phone embedded inside a PDA could be the planned direction for this miniaturization.

    Palm is too bulky a unit to be used as a phone, contrary to whatever Handspring say about its Treo. The 9210 is too heavy and too thick for most people. Imagine a phone with Palm functionality, the integration of 9210, and the weight of 80g. This ring-phone technology could be the answer to our prayers.
  • could be used as a defence in court....
    well it's like this your honour , i was showing him my new phone and he like, took offence , and it all went downhill from then onwards.....

  • Cell phone in your ring? (Score:4, Funny)

    by sporty ( 27564 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @01:38PM (#2938045) Homepage
    Who would wanna cell phone in their ring? Keep it in your shoe like any professional spy [tvland.com].

  • It doesnt matter. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @01:38PM (#2938050) Homepage
    Motorola already has a cellphone watch. It's worthless as it's battery life is about 30 seconds. outside of digital land (which makes up 75% of the continental US and 90% of Canada.)

    They can make it the size of an eraser head, If they cant get me a battery for it that lasts as long as a full day of use then it's worthless technology.
    • They can make it the size of an eraser head, If they cant get me a battery for it that lasts as long as a full day of use then it's worthless technology.

      I'd think a few grains of Plutonium-238(in a companion ring with a hard shield protecting the battery) would be enough fuel for anyone. Unfortunately average humans of today would crack it open and irradiate themselves to death.

      Though there are other fuel sources, which given the unique properties of mems, could simply tap atomic motion itself for power with microspring capacitors if needed. The rythmn of your pulse, plus the motion of your hand, and the difference in temperature of your flesh and the outside air itself combined could be more than enough power to keep a micro-cellphone ring running indefinitely.

      There is a huge arena of ambient energy to be tapped once you can define the microscopic world efficently.
  • Why mention a ring phone? I would think that a phone built into a pair of glasses would be more practical. You could even have a projection monitor built in so you could see caller id, menus, browsers/video etc.

    Of course the Trekkies would all buy the 'com badge' version.
  • I dont know about what you all want, all i want is a cell phone the size of a Jabra ear piece :)

  • Y'know, a gold ring with an embedded digital timepiece, not much bigger than your standard gold band. Even something that displays at the push of a button to conserve battery power. What's the use of having a cellphone the size of a ring when you have to have that 3-ounce watch around your wrist?
  • Guy sitting at bar talking into his finger:

    "No it's not a Cell Phone, it's an IN-VIS-A-BLE PHONE!!!"

    ("Only 8 bucks a minute too") :)
  • finger user@domain.tld opens a whole new realm of possibilities..

    Oh, come on, use your imagination.
  • From Oct 2000 Wired [wired.com]:

    "NTT DoCoMo's Media Computing Lab is currently developing a wearable wireless phone that consists only of a wristband. The phone, called the "Whisper," because it vibrates rather than rings, contains a tiny microphone the wearer speaks into.

    The wristband also contains a device that converts voice into vibrations that travel through the hand, the finger and into the ear canal.

    To answer incoming calls, the wearer taps the index finger and thumb -- that's it -- and then sticks a finger in one ear to hear the person on the other line. "

  • Psychological problem with small phones (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bjtuna ( 70129 ) <brian AT intercarve DOT net> on Friday February 01, 2002 @02:22PM (#2938308) Homepage
    There's a reason why phones overseas (in Japan and Korea, for example) are so much smaller than they are here. Besides the technology being a small jump ahead over there, Americans seem to have issues with small cell phones-- we think that because they're small, they aren't picking up our voices or that they're toys that somehow don't work as well. And we do this with larger cellphones too (albeit to a lesser degree), probably because we grew up thinking that cellphones were really staticky. Consequently, Americans tend to yell unnecessarily into cell phones, especially small ones. We seem to be uncomfortable accepting the fact that if the microphone part of the handset isn't right next to our mouth, it can still pick up our voice.

    For this reason, phone manufacturers actually increase the size of cell phones for sale in America, or otherwise simply choose not to sell the smaller models here. I predict these types of "ring phones" and what-not will probably have a very hard time gaining a mainstream foothold in North America.
  • but, they have GOT TO get a better voice activated system for this. I end up sounding like a robot when I try to voice call someone. Fix this, then we can talk about little phones.
  • Hmmm...what if the issue isn't making the phones themselves smaller, but adding small bits of telephony to useful places?

    Or, to put it another way, you have a "normal" sized cell phone (whatever we decide that is) that you carry with you, but everywhere you go there's a phone embedded into small spaces places?

    Ooo, even better. What if the receivers are all built on a bluetooth [bluetooth.org] standard. Everyone has a jabra-like [jabra.com] ear piece that automatically reaches out and makes a "PAN" connection when it comes in range of a "button" phone. There's a button phone receiver on your monitor, in your car, and in your house, and when you're in any of those spaces, all you have to do is touch your ear piece and speak the number you want to dial. Calls are automatically forwarded to you depending on where the PAN is established. If you go to a store, your earpiece automatically connects to the button phone receiver on the shopping cart, so that if you have questions while you're shopping, you can ask a customer service rep (on their dime)...

    Okay. Back to the crack smoking....
  • And frankly, "Talk to the hand" could use an update... it's getting a little stale. Now all we need a technological advance to give new meaning to "Voted off the island", "You ARE the weakest link", "Is that your final answer?" and "I'd like to phone a friend". Actually I suppose this could have some bearing on the last one...

    - StaticLimit
    • Someone who went entirely too far [thetimes.co.uk] with the "weakest link". He told his wife "You are the weakest link - goodbye", then strangled her. And he taped it! That sure made the trial a slam-dunk.
  • And one ring to call them all.
  • PERFECT! Now people can get a lip stud and an earring, and it will be their cell phone.

    Of course, then you'll have people forever asking you "Did getting your cell phone hurt?"

  • Phone sex...

  • I already have ENOUGH trouble dialing my phone.
    Voice recognition... okay... "Phone, dial 201-555-1212!"... and every phone on the bus starts ringing.
  • Although I'm not an expert in electronics, I'm an RF/analog engineer and have noticed a few trends. Researchers invent a technology that is great and then someone gets on a bandwagon to have the technology solve many more problems in a shorter amount of time than ever actually happens. MEMs in an outstanding idea, but in order to have a cell phone on a ring, you are forgetting all of the other components. Are these magically going to morph into smaller spaces and perform? Also, talk to a packaging and/or manufacturing engineer and figure out how easy his job is going to be:) You can't just scale down and expect the laws of physics to follow suit. Try to fit a battery on that ring and have it transmit to a base station that's a mile away. If you've got 50% effeciency on the power amp, then your finger is taking 50% of the transmission power as heat. I guess you could have a liquid cooled ring :) I dream that this technology will help us get there, but I wouldn't hold your breath for a ring cellphone. They've already got a cell phone that transmits from a wristwatch, but this device has a huge problem with the battery. Actually, I would like to see what effect the new fuel cell technology with make upon the market. I would encourage any of you who are interested in RF/analog engineering, electronics packaging or electronics manufacturing to consider the huge opportunities that exist for you today. It is a challenging but very rewarding job for those who are interested.
  • > The NY Times has a feature

    The last time a NY Times story came up, I put in a bogus name and e-mail address, however the e-mail address was aliased to an existing one. Well, guess what? Earlier today I received spam to this bogus e-mail address using the bogus name. Rancid wankers.

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