MetaFilter posts tagged with cellphones and Nokia

The Present and Future of Mobile Phones

filthy light thief — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:35:50 -0800

Jan Chipchase is employeed by Nokia in the "corporate anthropology" field, but he considers it "design research," as he's not an anthropologist by training. His work covers researching how people modify their phones in China, India, Ghana, and elsewhere, adding features or extending battery life. He also tracks how cellphones are associated with personal identity and how they are playing roles far from urban and suburban centers. In some locations, cell phone numbers are written above doorways for identification, when there is no official map or organization for streets. He also blogs about his experiences, and his most recent post, he covers the rise of "Super Fakes." The term "super fake" is often applied to designer goods and can refer to counterfeit money. But in terms of fashion products, imitation goods are more than an attempt to dupe the unknowing end-user to maximize profit. Chipchase's question, "What happens when a large % of your target market wants your brand cachet but is happy with a decent-enough quality fake?" is about branded technology, but the question can also be applied to knock-off purses. Knock-off electronics have their own following, with some websites devoted to such items. Such sites can do more than detail the successes and feature sets of imitation products, they may also add background details to news stories (the original story didn't detail that MediaTek is only now shifting to legit production, starting in production of knock-offs). Shanzhai, previously.

You can't do that with an XBox

donovan — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 14:28:26 -0800

Sidetalkin provides humorous photos that force us to ask the question: Has Nokia's NGage redefined phone ergonomics or simply provided a humorous diversion for a slow Friday afternoon?

mook — Mon, 14 Jan 2002 15:33:35 -0800

Nokia's new subsidiary - Vertu - lays out its plans to combat street crime by developing undesirable mobile phones.

frednorman — Mon, 19 Nov 2001 06:33:08 -0800

Nokia 7650 - A cellphone, a digital camera, a photo album, a PDA with a color display and joystick -- all within 114 x 56 x 26 mm dimensions, shaped like this, looking like this. Must... put... on... Christmas... wishlist.

HeikoH — Thu, 11 Oct 2001 03:51:10 -0800

Looks weird. Sounds Great. Nokia's latest mobile phone seems to be a rather weird symbiosis of phone, keyboard device, pda, and mp3 player. I guess it will take a while before it hits the USA. But me, being in Europe, I think I'd like to check it out closely.