March 18, 2005

Convergence >>> GSM Phone & Laptop :

I saw an advertisement of the Nokia 9300 and it floored me with its combination of a full functional keyboard … it is truly a combination of a cellphone as well as a full functional computer and that too a free of Microsoft technology .. who could ask for anything more ?

Actually I do ask for something more … I want the phone to be smaller and I want the screen and the keyboard to be bigger … but that is an inherent contradiction. The only way that we could overcome this is to have a real laptop ( big screen & keyboard & all ) that is connected to a tiny phone through a USB cable .. but that too is rather clumsy.

So here is my solution …

Let us design a small PC-card style device that can accommodate the SIM card of the GSM phone. When I am in pure cellphone mode, for example, when I am traveling, the SIM card stays within the cellphone … and I use the cellphone.

When I want to browse the internet, I pull out the SIM card from the phone and put in the PC-card style device and push it into the PC-card slot of my laptop. This brings network access to my laptop and I use it for internet access. When the SIM card is in the laptop should I need to make and receive phone calls on the number associated with my SIM card, I will use a telephone software … of the kind that is used for VoIP style calls using the microphone and speakers built into the laptop itself. And since this is software phone it can be easily upgraded to support a whole range of services like Answering Machine, call forwarding and so on.

Carrying things a little further why should I have to fiddle with the SIM card. Let us have the PC-card slot in the cellphone itself. The SIM card remains in the PC-card device .. and I push it into either (a) the cellphone or (b) the laptop depending on my current state of mobility.

Is Nokia listening ? Or will this idea be picked up by one of the Far Eastern companies that are adept at adapting existing technology for innovative use.

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