SOME people like their cellphones to ring, others prefer them to vibrate. Now a modern Frankenstein has brought them to life so that we can monitor their vital signs instead.
Fabian Hemmert at the Deutsche Telekom Laboratories in Berlin, Germany, has programmed a phone to vibrate with a steady 鈥渉eartbeat鈥� that races in excitement when it receives a call and fades away as the battery runs low.
Some of the volunteers who carried Hemmert鈥檚 鈥渁mbient life鈥� phone around for a day felt reassured by the feedback that the phone was 鈥減resent and calm鈥�, and reported missing it when separated from their phone at night. One said it was like caring for a new pet, but others found the throbbing annoying during quiet activities such as reading and didn鈥檛 notice when their dying phones went into cardiac arrest.
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Another of Hemmert鈥檚 designs, demoed at this week鈥檚 User Interface in Software and Technology symposium in Monterey, California, encases the phone in a lung-like pouch whose surface moves in a way that feels like breathing. It can pant and gasp to alert its user to its state.
