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Handhelds Wireless Networking Hardware

Nokia Shows Off Phone with Printable Faceplate 149

jonknee writes "Nokia is prepping a new phone that one-ups all the other attempts at face plates... you can print your own! Just place one of the template pages it comes with (you can buy more) into your ink jet, and make a nifty design that isn't mass marketed at every mall this side of the Mississippi. The template is perforated so you can get a nice fit around the keys. The phone looks pretty nifty as well: camera, flashlight, FM radio and about everything else." It might be fun to rename someone's keys as a practical joke, not that I've ever done it to anyone's computer keyboard.
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Nokia Shows Off Phone with Printable Faceplate

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  • by typobox43 ( 677545 ) <typobox43@gmail.com> on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:16AM (#6951638) Homepage
    But can you actually make phone calls with it?
  • Great (Score:2, Funny)

    So I shall print out my girlfriend with the great body, but ugly face. A face that will be covered by the display :-)
  • All together now, class, "Wow, that's just nifty."
  • Not Exacty (Score:4, Informative)

    by Linux Ate My Dog! ( 224079 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:18AM (#6951646) Homepage Journal
    I believe you can't actually rebadge the keys, the template has holes punched out that fit around the keys, much like Nokia's faceplates for the current phones.

    SO you actually don't see that much of your design on the front -- it is all keys and screen -- but a lot of it on the back.
    • And if the Cowboy Neal has bothered to even read the blurb he cut/pasted, he might have noticed that it stated exactly this 2 LINES above where he makes his suggests his prank. Wow....I think of myself as a lazy person who never RTFA...but not even RYFP (reading your fucking post).......that just takes things to a whole new level.

  • by grokBoy ( 582119 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:18AM (#6951647)
    ... I recall hex editing someone's keyboard mappings (Windows) so that the misplaced keys still generated the correct letters.

    Hours of fun, especially for touch typists =)
    • by sonicattack ( 554038 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:40AM (#6951744) Homepage
      Yes, I did a similar thing when I attended a computer course years ago. Xmodmap can be fun if you gain access to another user's X server. One of the guys in the front of the classroom got bewildered trying to surf the web with some of the most common keys subtly transposed.

      Shifting keys around as a joke reminds me of another story too, a bit more interesting.

      Some guy called his network admin and asked for help with a "password problem". It seemed as he could log into his account when sitting down on the chair in front of the computer, but if he tried to log in standing up (!), he would get a "wrong password" error. The admin asked for the password and tried it himself. Sure enough, when he sat down, the system would let him log. When he stood up and tried logging in with the same name and password, no go. Now this is not the usual kind of problem you run into. So he checked if there was some kind of interference, like some cable being shifted when anyone stood up from the chair, but he couldn't find any such thing.

      It turned out that someone, as a joke, had physically transposed two keys on the keyboard. Now, how could this cause the problem? Well, both the guy with the account and the admin were touch typists, and sitting down, they didn't need to look what keys they pressed. But standing up, they had to peek at the keyboard to get the keys "right". Which they didn't, of course.

      Now I can't remember where I heard this story first (Slashdot?), and I've most certainly not remembered all the details correctly, but admit it's a cool story nevertheless! :)
      • by jfengel ( 409917 )
        Great story, but I have to call shennanigans.

        I don't believe any touch typist is going to miss the fact that keys are transposed when doing hunt-and-peck. To touch-type you have to know where the keys are pretty well, and if you move keys around it's going to feel strange. Even if a first person gets fooled, I doubt a second person will.

        Still, it's a great story, and if it isn't true, it ought to be.
        • I don't believe any touch typist is going to miss the fact that keys are transposed when doing hunt-and-peck.

          Not that you'll believe me any more than the previous poster, but this did happen to me.

          I used to work at a college as a sysadmin. One day a professor e-mailed that the keyboard was messed up on one of the computers in a certain lab. So, I walked over there, then decided I should e-mail him and ask him which machine and exactly what he meant by "messed up".

          By the time I finished the e-mail, I l
      • That's some good security. "Hey network guy, here's my password, it doesn't work for me but maybe it will for you --" If I were the admin I would have revoked priveleges right then.
    • by rasteri ( 634956 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @11:42AM (#6951968) Journal
      A similar story -

      I once changed around the number keys at the top of the keyboard so that they went 0123456789 instead of 1234567890... it took the IT support staff weeks to figure out what was going on :)
  • by Anonymous Coward
    With a Sharpie, any phone has a paintable face.
  • Pictures (Score:5, Informative)

    by KillerLoop ( 202131 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:20AM (#6951652) Homepage
    Just in case anybody is interested how this thing actually looks:
    http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,42298,00.html [nokia.com]
    • Re:Pictures (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by questamor ( 653018 )
      Seriously, the blonde guy on that page looks freaky. No, really he scares me. What's with the mouth and nose and airbrushing? gah!
    • Ugh. I like my phone to actually look like a PHONE. Most of these new Nokia phones have downright ugly keypad layouts. This is no exception. Personally, I'd rather Nokia make these for the 5100 series or something. (semi-permanent labels?)
    • For those interested in such things, here is the full specs [nokia.com] on Nokia's site.
    • I'll stick with my P800 thanks. It's plenty-customizible and doesn't look as butt-ugly as that nokia phone.

      Nokia needs to remember that functionality is a higher priority than style.

      Well, it is for me anyway...

      N.
    • I followed the link and music that sounded like level excepts from Jax & Daxter started blaring out of my speakers. Not cool when one is at the office.

      How in the world could someone think that hi-jacking my speakers is a bright way to present information on a phone to an end-user? I felt like I had hit a geocities page.
    • I don't know about the US, but where i live, there this mobile shop that will thermal imprint any image you want on a blank cover for any current nokia phone you want...

      I think i'll be more water resistant then inkjet as well...

  • Faceplate revenue (Score:5, Informative)

    by tessaiga ( 697968 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:21AM (#6951657)

    There's specs and some more PR stuff on the 3200 from the Nokia site [nokia.com].

    Sounds like something that'll catch on with the younger crowd; I'm surprised that no one else has done it yet. On the other hand, faceplates are a big business with that same demographic, so maybe no one's tried it because they'd rather make you pay to customize.

    • Replace the paper faceplate with a programmable LCD color screen. Now you can animate your faceplate, take a photo with the camera and display it right away on the back of your phone... endless possibilities.

      So what if it sucks the batteries? It sells phones.
      • I seriously hope nobody patents this obvious idea. I was going to put the same suggestion before I saw you had it. That also, of course, includes OLEDs or any other movable type print technology. (Slashdot is great for creating prior art.)
  • by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:22AM (#6951666)
    Does the ink run? Holding a cell phone in your hand on a hot day is a recipe for running ink... as is drinking a glass of water next to the phone and touching the glass to the phone accidentally. Is there some sort of lamination or waterproofing provided? Otherwise, I don't think the printouts will last too long in "real world" use.
    • by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:27AM (#6951688) Homepage Journal
      i dunno how often you get water INSIDE your phone.. but that's not usually a problem for me.

      it looks like the plates go under the plastic covers rather than staying on the the top(heck, if you just want that then you can print your own covers now and glue them on the phone).
      • i dunno how often you get water INSIDE your phone.. but that's not usually a problem for me.

        If your have water inside your phone, you have a bigger problem than running ink. ;)
        • man, i once got whiskey inside the siemens i had on loan last winter. it worked ok for a while, i was in a real hurry and couldn't open it up immediately to dry(friend came to give a lift to another friend where the party was at) so i just swept it clean. on the way we went to the grocery store(to get some enlish cider the whiskey) where it started to act funny(at this point i also realised it had gotten some whiskey inside it and reeked of alcohol).

          couple of hours on the tv dried up the insides though and
    • Well I guess that's just a matter of paper/ink quality... Epson, HP and Canon all have waterproof ink now if you use decent paper, and printouts should last longer than the phone with pigment ink... hell even dye lasts longer than a phone considering in 2 years it'll be outdated and dull. Again, Nokia is allowing users to freely modify covers, if the user makes a crappy printout and whines cause it's not lasting long enough, then what he needs isn't a new phone, it's a new printer.
    • As this Register article [theregister.co.uk] and the phone tech specs [nokia.com] (mentioned here) [slashdot.org] say, you must use non-conductive ink. What they don't say is where you find such an item -- though I don't know whether manufacturers specifically mention if their inks are conductive or not. Plus bear in mind that the cut-outs go between the inside of the phone and a transparent cover. I think custom prints will last fine; time will tell.
      • Well... non-conductive inks... although have not heard anything specific to that matter, I would bet any dye ink would be conductive as they are made out of 80% or more water... the solution would then be pigment ink, kind of a paradox since you would probably want to make nice photo printouts for covers, and almost all photo printers use dye... ah well. Nice idea... next?!
  • Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:25AM (#6951677)
    That mobile phones, one of the most useful applications of technology ever are so ubiqutious they are now practically being treated as fashion accessories rather than technology.
    • I wear an ugly ass company-provided cellphone everywhere. Damn skippy if I can cutomize it, I'm going to. Anything to get away from the bland.

      And btw, you have any stickers on your computer case?
      • Yes well, you are still not unique. Everybody and their mother can buy the same face plates you can. If this Nokia thing takes of you might but I still doubt it.

        Asians are notorious for customizing their phones to death...those neon/blue lights just annoy me to death. They are an abomination and should be made illegal.
        • Asians are notorious for customizing their phones to death...those neon/blue lights just annoy me to death. They are an abomination and should be made illegal.

          What, Asians?
    • And this is a good thing? Mobile phones are just another thing I have to contend with everyday. I was at a party the other day and before everyone got drunk, the only thing they were doing was playing with and showing off their damn phones.
    • >they are now practically being treated as fashion accessories rather than technology.

      Lets not start bashing the phone companies, consumers want this and whether or not you realize it you love this also. How many case modding articles have been posted to slashdot? That's fashion too.

      Every phone has some wacky design because the standard screen plus keys is fairly boring and been done many times before. There are no conservative looking phones out there, no standard designs. Everything is over desig
  • by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:27AM (#6951686) Journal
    If I had heard about this any place except Slashdot, I would have assumed that the intended market for this product was 12-year-old girls. I had to re-read the article twice to confirm that there really wasn't anything at all interesting about this phone. News for Nerds? What the hell?
    • maybe... (Score:4, Funny)

      by mblase ( 200735 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:48AM (#6951774)
      News for Nerds? What the hell?

      What if the submitter had suggested a custom faceplate showing Natalie Portman, naked and petrified, eating a bowl of hot grits?
      • What if the submitter had suggested a custom faceplate showing Natalie Portman, naked and petrified, eating a bowl of hot grits?

        In Soviet Russia, the bowls of hot grits put Natalie Portman down their pants.

        LK
    • by Mulletproof ( 513805 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @11:39AM (#6951956) Homepage Journal
      Teenage girls are what drive the cellphone economy in Japan...

      • Teenage girls are what drive the cellphone economy in Japan...

        And, more relevantly, Europe. Japan is by all means a minor market for Nokia, who's stronghold is in countries with GSM networks (Europe, the rest of Asia and the Americas (except the US)). They do have CDMA models (for the US, Japan uses something called PDC or PHS - there is W-CDMA 3G service which would work with some 3G handsets as well, but raise your hand if you have a 3G handset... I thought so.), but not as many as GSM models.

        Note how
  • by phoxix ( 161744 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:27AM (#6951687)
    While I was looking at the Phone [nokia.com].

    I thought to myself: How on earth am I supposed to dial with those keys?

    Am I the only one thinking about this ?

  • Good news (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:29AM (#6951693)
    Now I can keep my vi cheatsheet with me wherever I go.
  • Make your time ! Sombody set us up the phone !!

    All you base are belong to us !!!

    Nokia :)
  • Slashdotters will take advantage of the personalization oportunities offered by this and will all have something unique.... the penguin. :)
  • by freeweed ( 309734 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:37AM (#6951730)
    Many, many moons ago the place I worked at had a computer tech with a bizzare sense of humor.

    Every year in December, he'd replace the boss' keyboard's L with a J key. We'd ask him why, and he'd say "because this way you now have a Christmas keyboard".

    "Huh?"

    "No L".

    *cymbal crash*
    • I have sent out Xmas cards where the front was a simple 5x5 grid of letters:

      A B C D E
      F G H I J
      K M N O P
      Q R S T U
      V W X Y Z

      Few people ever understood, so most would end up calling for an explanation, which was fun. Same idea.
    • Funny story, but you got the keys wrong. You can't change out the J key, or the F key. Those are the keys with the raised plastic so you can feel that your hands are in the right place, and the bottom part of the key is a different size than the rest of the keys.

      As someone who has changed out many keys to hunt-and-peck users, I know. :)
      • Most keyboards I've ever worked on use the exact same sized keys for all letters.

        The little bump on the J is now doubled, you're right. But the key cap is exactly the same size.

        YMMV
  • From the article:
    Integrated camera Polyphonic ringtones Customized contact list (images and ringtones) Integrated flashlight FM radio IR JavaTM
    Why is it Nokia will release phones with all sorts of 'features' like a radio and a calorie counter, but can't give us more phones with bluetooth? I know they have a couple, but for the US market the offerings are pretty slim unless you want to carry around the big (by today's standards) 3650. IR isn't dead but it should be.
    • Not enough market to justify the extra hardware.

      Phones in these 'low' series are consumer products, Nokia expects to sell millions of them. Adding the hardware, which will only make it desireable to a very small part of those millions, just isn't a good proposition if it makes the hardware more expensive for the overwhelming amount of people who don't want it. It makes the phone more expensive to subsidize for the operator, and Nokia lives and dies by the operator liking the phones.

      MMS and cameras will ma
  • It might be fun to rename someone's keys as a practical joke, not that I've ever done it to anyone's computer keyboard.

    Yeah, similarly I could put the phone's number keys the same way up as the keys on my calculator and the numeric keypad on my computer keyboard, with "7 8 9" up the top instead of "1 2 3" up the top.

    Does anyone know why phones' keys are upside down compared to a computer keyboard and a calculator?

  • Keys (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spoonist ( 32012 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @10:49AM (#6951779) Journal

    What's up with Nokia keypad layouts, anyway?

    Go here [nokia.com] and look at some phones.

    The 3650 are in a circle. I gave up rotary dial decades ago, I don't want to be reminded.

    The 3510 is like a spider web or something.

    The 8910i doesn't have any keys at all! (Just kidding... I know they're under a cover.)

    This 3200 looks like it doesn't have enough keys.

    The 2100 looks like a smiley face.

    With all these funky keys, how does Nokia expect me to dial a freakin' phone while I'm driving my SUV at 90mph in the right lane eating two cheese burgers and a Coke?

    • Re:Keys (Score:3, Funny)

      by tessaiga ( 697968 )
      With all these funky keys, how does Nokia expect me to dial a freakin' phone while I'm driving my SUV at 90mph in the right lane eating two cheese burgers and a Coke?
      If you've actually mastered talking with your mouth stuffed full of 2 cheeseburgers and a coke, I'm sure that the dialing part will be relatively easy :)
    • Actually I was playing with a few odd shaped keypad's at the local radioshack the other day and discovered they are not hard to use at all, they LOOK strange but when you goto hit the keys, their pressure points are right where you would expect them to be, helps if you don't look at, after a slight adjustment period (like 3 calls prob) wouldn't matter at all.
    • **With all these funky keys, how does Nokia expect me to dial a freakin' phone while I'm driving my SUV at 90mph in the right lane eating two cheese burgers and a Coke?** i except that then you would get a voice activated one.

      besides.. it's offbase to compare keypads on dialing speeds, since most of the time you call numbers that are already on your phones memory, from the address book. what's more important is the text typing speeds, at least for me. 3650 is big enough for my thumbs combined with the butt
  • Real features (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Aliencow ( 653119 )
    What I want in a phone, and no phone seems to have it yet, is some kind of public key system that encrypts the data. You would have your two keys, and you could send your contact info + public key to someone else. When they call you, it enrcypts all the data both ways..
    But that's probably cause I'm a terrorist...
  • Looks good but (Score:3, Informative)

    by $exyNerdie ( 683214 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @11:03AM (#6951839) Homepage Journal

    Even though this Nokia phone looks good but I would spend my $$ on this one:

    Handspring Treo 600 Getting Closer [palminfocenter.com]

    The story behind it's design [handspring.com]

    More images [palminfocenter.com]

    Another image [palminfocenter.com]

    More info on how it will look like [treocentral.com]

    Treo 600 in Europe next week? [treocentral.com]

    Future Phones/PDA's [treocentral.com]

    • Hmm... It's looking good, but still not quite there.

      I've got a SE P800 and I really like it - it's not quite perfect either, but also getting there.

      Some of the problems:

      Treo:

      -Lo-res screen. 160x160. Ugh. Needs to be at least doubled to 320x320.

      -Protruding antenna bulge on the top,
      not so good, likely to get hooked on stuff.

      -No bluetooth? I was skeptical about bluetooth at first, but I love it now - it's a great way to interface headsets to the phone and sync/move files without having to plug the un
    • The Sidekick is getting OS 1.1 this month sent via wireless to all devices. It will finally give us a download manager, copy and paste, and some minor but needed tweaks. The lack of influx of third-party software is really going to make it look bad if the treo launches before the SK has a chance to update and give us a download app. You can see the sneak preview here:

      http://www.danger.com/developers_peek.php [danger.com]
  • No Bluetooth how can you ever think about getting this phone, my next phone will be a Sony E. 610 looks good but Z600 might do, until that my I65 will just work fine.
  • Apple did it already (Score:5, Informative)

    by rufo ( 126104 ) <rufo&rufosanchez,com> on Saturday September 13, 2003 @11:14AM (#6951873)
    Apple's PowerBook 1400 did it already with the BookCover [apple.co.jp]. There's a removable clear plastic cover (they also included one of grey plastic in case you didn't like the idea) that slides off the top part of the laptop, and underneath you can put any appropriately shaped piece of paper. It even came with templates pre-installed on the hard drive so you could design something to place there. Was kind of a cool idea, but it didn't really take off, as one can easily see.
  • Bluetooth (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TummyX ( 84871 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @11:19AM (#6951892)
    No thanks. I use a bluetooth headset and connect my phone to my notebook using bluetooth.

    Until Nokia stop being total wankers and resume support bluetooth on their phones I'm not buying one -- no matter how many "features" it has.

    People have been abandoning Nokia like hell because they've stopped making "professional" products. I mean, who wants an FM(!) radio (!) over bluetooth?
    • ** resume support bluetooth **

      ??? whaaaaat?

      what the f? just buy a nokia phone with bluetooth if you want one(7650,3650,6310(i),6650,upcoming 6600, upcoming ngage,8910). they've totally NOT dropped bluetooth support.

      they never "stopped" making "professional" products, they've just been selling stuff for teens on the side for quite a few years now.


      • 7650 -- doesn't support bluetooth headset profile.

        3650 - weird key layout.

        6310i - very old but not a bad phone.

        6650, 6600 ngage, 8910 -- i'll loook into them. the 6650 looks good.

        I'm suprised, their last lot of phone releases only included one bluetooth phone (the 3650).
  • by sstory ( 538486 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @11:22AM (#6951898) Homepage
    It might be fun to rename someone's keys as a practical joke, not that I've ever done it to anyone's computer keyboard.

    Joke would be on you if you did this to someone like me who types on a QWERTY keyboard but with the OS set to Dvorak. They probably wouldn't notice the renaming.

    • It sounds like what you're saying is that because you've remapped your keyboard to Dvorak, you're so pitifully slow at hunt-and-peck typing that a scrambled keyboard wouldn't really make you type any slower than you already do.

      Probably not what you meant.
  • by huphtur ( 259961 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @11:28AM (#6951920)
    since phonescoop.com seems to be down, here [infosyncworld.com] is another site with more info about the phone.
  • oh (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    WhoTF needs a phone with a camera, flashlight, radio and other bullshit, if what a true geek needs is gprs, bluetooth and maybe 802.11?
  • by mesach ( 191869 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @11:35AM (#6951946)
    I got tired of having the mall I goto have the same stuff this side of the Mississippi, I wanted something unique so I moved to the other side of the Mighty Mississip, and now there are LOTS of things I can get and a printable face plate was one along time ago...

    You really should think about moving.
  • Printible faceplates, but that still dont' negate the total lack of quality of Nokia's products.
  • by Linker3000 ( 626634 ) on Saturday September 13, 2003 @12:01PM (#6952055) Journal
    Strangely enough, I've just posted to a diabetes newsgroup on this...

    Having a mobile phone with a built-in blood glucose meter would be a real useful thing, especially since the number of people with the disease is growing at an alarming rate.

    Imagine what could also be done--you could IR, bluetooth, USB or phone in your results to your computer or an online data store or your docs. If your BG indicated a possible hypo or hyper attack you could press OK to dial one or more numbers for assistance, or the phone could be pre-programmed to automatically dial for help if you did not hit NO/Cancel within, say 10 seconds. With calendaring and alarms, the phone could also remind when it's time to take medication.

    As a type 2 diabetic, I have to carry a meter around with me that's about the same size as a mobile phone, so having the two integrated would be great.
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, I happen to know that some people at Nokia tried to get something like that done several years ago.

      The reason the project was axed, was that the pharmaceutical industry and doctors were totally against it. They want the patients to remain as dependent on them as possible.
      • Interesting feedback. I did come across this paper [demon.co.uk] whilst researching the subject - essentially it's a phone/meter linked together to forward results for analysis and feedback, but it's not a single, integrated unit. Research sponsored by Vodaphone (UK) with trials supposedly started in July 2003.
    • FCC approval is bad enough -- now Nokia has to get FDA approval for a handset too?

      Actually, much of what you dicsuss might be done by a separate glucose meter that interfaces with the Nokia phone using the PopPort. That could be a 3d party opportunity.
  • "It might be fun to rename someone's keys as a practical joke, not that I've ever done it to anyone's computer keyboard."

    Man, that CowboyNeal, he sure has some wackyfun ideas! What will he think of next? Livin' on the Edge!
  • ...have been available for years now, for just about all of their entry-level phones that have user-replaceable covers. I've had a couple before; it was kind of cool holding up a phone where you could see the raw internals... ...sliding a printed sheet of paper underneath the plastic somehow doesn't sound like an improvement :\ ...
  • 80s flashback (Score:2, Insightful)

    This "innovation" reminds me of the Mattel Intellivision game console from the 1980s. Take a look at the front page of IntellivisionLives.com [intellivisionlives.com] - you can see the plastic faceplate on one of the controllers.

    Now that I think about it - the controllers have a very phone-like interface. I wonder where the Nokia engineers got the idea.. ;-)
  • ...that isn't mass marketed at every mall this side of the Mississippi.

    Funny how that expression seems to work no matter where in the US you live...
  • Give me a phone that works with my email and calendar. I have tried the Sony ericsson, but it froze a couple of times, which were unacceptable since it was when it was lying idle on my desk or in the middle of the night, when I was on call duty.
    So I swithed to a Nokia phone with Bluetooth and the it is great that the phone just needs to be near my pc in the office for me to sync it with Notes. But the sync. of the phone is too annoying when you have tried a PDA. It's not a one touch update like my Palm wa
  • ... camera, flashlight, FM radio and about everything else

    Where's the spork?

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