Share your innermost feelings with Dalsfjord, Norway.
posted on Aug 13, 2008 - View this thread

Google's Android goes live for demo. Lots of video and stills. Cache.
posted on May 28, 2008 - View this thread

Who really invented the telephone? Was it this guy?, or did he just win a foot race to the patent office with this guy or was it really...
posted on Apr 18, 2008 - View this thread

[archaic tech filter] Foreign correspondents and reporters in the field at the New York Times say goodbye to the paper of record's recording room.
posted on Dec 6, 2007 - View this thread

Bob Log III plays distorted trash grimey blues slide guitar with his hands, he drawls through a telephone attached to the bubble face of the motorcycle helmet he wears, and he drums with his feet. He is known to ask women to stir his scotch on stage with their breasts, which is sadly Not currently Safe for Work. Sometimes he asks them to sit on his knee, bouncing up and down on the blue glittery jump suit he wears whenever he plays.
posted on Oct 11, 2007 - View this thread

The son of industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger (creator of the distinct styling of the Apple IIc and subsequent products, as well as founder of frog design) shares memories and photographs (auf Deutsch; Google cache) of Apple's early attempts at an iPhone.
posted on Jul 18, 2007 - View this thread

Maddox on iPhone
posted on Jul 17, 2007 - View this thread

For four months, the Kuykendalls, the Prices and the McKays say they’ve been harassed and threatened by mysterious cell phone stalkers who track their every move and occasionally lurk by their homes late at night, screaming and banging on walls. Police can’t seem to stop them. The late-night visitors vanish before officers arrive. The families say investigators have a hard time believing the stalkers can control cell phones without touching them and suspect an elaborate hoax. Complaints to their phone companies do no good – the families say they’ve been told what the stalkers are doing is impossible.
posted on Jun 29, 2007 - View this thread

Before the iPhone there were devices known as telephones.
posted on Jun 29, 2007 - View this thread

Telephone Central Office Histories - A fascinating collection of personal anecdotes and histories about telephony from the US and around the world, from The Telephone Exchange Name Project. Coral Cache links -1- -2- (via)
posted on Jun 9, 2007 - View this thread

PSST! Pass It On…
posted on May 8, 2007 - View this thread

Telephone excise tax refund
Get your $60 + bucks back from the government... and do something good with it (beware talking website). Via the always excellent Ian Masters today.
posted on Apr 8, 2007 - View this thread

"Cohen on the Telephone" (real audio) is "not politically correct by modern standards, due to its Yiddish stereotyping, but certainly popular in its time and rumored to be the first comedy record to sell a million copies. This bit primarily made fun of the crude telephone system in use during 1913, when Joe Hayman recorded it in London in July of that year for Regal/Zonophone (it was issued on Columbia here in the States the following year). Several other labels hastily released versions by other artists, and a series of sequels followed right up into the mid-20's." Such as "Cohen Exceeds the Speed Limit", "Cohen at the Pay-station", "Cohen Phones His Tailor", "Cohen Telephones the Health Department" and "Cohen's Recruiting Speech" (all mp3s from The Virtual Gramaphone). There was even a movie.
posted on Feb 26, 2007 - View this thread

Blogs by Phone - for when your family and friends have trouble keeping up with your blog posts. (YouTube video from SixApart)
posted on Dec 22, 2006 - View this thread

Use the badly named Tglo to call any phone in the USA for free, and to SMS anyone in the world (maybe) for free.
posted on Aug 6, 2006 - View this thread

During a 1987 radio broadcast, Dutch comedian and writer Wim de Bie decided to take Ry Cooder up on his offer and give him a call. Hilarity ensued (RealAudio). Note: the song is played until about 1'55", phone conversation follows.
posted on Aug 2, 2006 - View this thread

If you watch enough television, you may have noticed that nobody says good-bye on the telephone. A little google action finds that some are worried that it may be a natural sociological progression. Or maybe it only happens on TV and with annoying telemarketers?
posted on Jun 12, 2006 - View this thread

The End of the Internet? "The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online."
posted on Feb 4, 2006 - View this thread

Psst... I know you called your girlfriend last night. No, not the one you live with. The naughty hottie that she doesn't know about. I know this because I paid a website $110 to buy your cell-phone records, which they delivered in two hours. Did you know that your private phone records are for sale?
posted on Jan 7, 2006 - View this thread

Call the aliens using first intentional intergalactic communication system. Just $3.99 a minute, though prospective callers should know that they aren't really breaking new ground. Do you need inspiration about what historic message to send? The first commercial telegraph message was the poetic "What hath God wrought?" The first telephone call was the famous "Come here Watson, I want to see you." The first email, rather boringly, announced the availability of email. Stuck on the first word? Follow the path of Edison, who coined the word "hello" as a telephone greeting over Alexander Graham Bell's "Ahoy Ahoy." (Audio version) Just hope that you don't receive a collect call in return.
posted on Oct 18, 2005 - View this thread

Safe Drunken Dialing: Its a fairly new and growing issue and we here at slackertown are tackling it head on with booze in hand. We've taken the liberty of setting up a number (321) 600-1200 for whenever the drunken dialing urge takes a hold of you. Whatever message you leave will be added to the slackertown web site so when you sober up you can check back see just how drunk you were.
posted on Feb 10, 2005 - View this thread

Thanks to our new service you too can spend quality time with Kato Kaelin. Unfortunately, Leon Spinks is currently unavailable. And if you think you might want to sleep or use your phone during the next week, make sure to read the faq.
posted on Dec 14, 2004 - View this thread

Say No To 0870. In the UK, many companies use 'non-geographical alternative telephone numbers' (e.g. those prefixed '0870') and they seem to be especially popular for customer service lines where you may be hanging on the line for a while. Companies get a cut of the call fee. Unfortunately, despite being advertised as national rate, consumers can't take advantage of free minutes included in their telephone packages as the numbers don't qualify. Say No to 0870 has a searchable database of alternative, geographical numbers to contact companies at reduced rates. [via Money Saving Expert]
posted on Nov 12, 2004 - View this thread

What would you do if your opponent's elderly constituents needed a ride to vote? Jam their phone lines of course.
posted on Jul 1, 2004 - View this thread

The dial in the base comes to you!. The Ericofon.
posted on Apr 16, 2004 - View this thread

Its not your fathers P.O.T.S. Plain Old Telephone Service is undergoing a fundamental shift as companies such as Verizon, AT&T and British Telecom embrace Internet technology to route long-distance and local phone calls to compete with services from the likes of upstarts Vonage and Packet8 and Skype etc. Is this the beginning of the Telepocalypse a race to the bottom of less and less profit and more and more layoffs? Follow the history and future of the woeful crumbling of the hiearchical phone phone company at David Isen's web page Are the guts of the phone companies the class 5 switch go the way of mainframe computer
posted on Dec 11, 2003 - View this thread

A collective "I told you so" from all the layed-off American tech workers. Dell to Stop Using Indian Call Center for Corporate Customers. Apparently, there was a high volume of complaints about thick accents and scripted responses. You don't say? You mean explaining complex technical issues to end users over a phone are further complicated by mixing in large dialect and enunciation differences?
posted on Nov 24, 2003 - View this thread

A giant game of telephone in the sky --For most of November in Yamaguchi, Japan, messages sent will be translated to japanese and back, and encoded as a unique set of flashes and redirected into the sky ove the city, flashing there until the recipient of the message retrieves it, transforming the skyline with data as light--created by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.

Meanwhile, at the same time on the other side of the world, there's Poetrica, on Sao Paulo, Brazil, advertising billboards.--messages that also can't be read in public in their current form. You write something and convert it into a non-phonetic font. The visual messages are archived on the web site and you get an email when your message is displayed on one of the billboards--created by Giselle Beiguelman
posted on Nov 1, 2003 - View this thread

Channel 118. The 118118 experience. [possibly nsfw]
posted on Aug 6, 2003 - View this thread

*Boop* *Boop* *Boop*! We're sorry, but the phone message you have called, is dead. Please hang up and dial again. Yes, Jane Barbe, the woman on phone messages, has been put on hold while she waits for St. Peter to take her call at the age of 74.
posted on Jul 28, 2003 - View this thread

Retro phone fun. Remember the days when telephone numbers included an exhcange, like BUtterfield 8, MUrray Hill 7, or YUkon 5? Even you young whippersnappers can look up your current phone number and see what it's exchange name used to be. If your number isn't in the database, you can check Ma Bell's list of recommended exchange names. The next time someone asks for your number, use the exchange and watch hilarity ensue.
posted on Jul 18, 2003 - View this thread

The day the dinnertime phone calls stopped. We've previously discussed the new national do-not-call list on Mefi, but this Salon piece puts a new spin on the subject. Millions of rural Americans will inevitably lose telemarketing jobs because telemarketing will be regulated out of business. But the government isn't regulating them out of business, it is just providing a way for people to choose not to participate in this business scheme. The people who add their names to the list are the people who are going to hang up in the telelmarketer's face anyways, so where's the harm in this list? And what about the DMA's 10 reasons to protect the teleservices industry?
posted on Jul 15, 2003 - View this thread

Don't ring 638-234-5837 whatever you do: it's MetaFilter's phone number. Mine, I'm leasing to slippery old KY Jelly: 004-GEL-1-FUN. All this because - so I'm told by a French friend - you backward Americans actually still have letters on your telephones, along with the rotary lever to crank it up. [From LinkFilter.]
posted on Jun 2, 2003 - View this thread

Phonebox cam 24/7 webcam pointed at a phonebox somewhere in UK, dial 01926 424110 or 0044 1926 424110 to see for yourself who answers the phone (I guess a videophone) (it's night in UK right now so you won't see much)
posted on May 3, 2003 - View this thread

Communications operator : "Hello police"
Caller: "My wife's left me two salmon sandwiches which was left over from last night... and I'm a sat in the chair here and she's out there decorating. She won't put any food on or anything for anybody, I don't know what...."
Communications operator: "I'm sorry but I really can't take this. It's not an emergency because your wife won't give you anything to eat."
posted on May 3, 2003 - View this thread

Bell System Memorial. State approved, centrally planned and controlled: no, not this, the old Bell System. Don't miss the photos (including the first car phone!) and ads (sometimes ironic). Offsite: the affiliated Telephone Tribute, a few old Bell ads from the Prelinger archives, and an entertaining US telephony history from Bruce Sterling's famous Hacker Crackdown.
posted on Mar 30, 2003 - View this thread

U.S. claims Canada's greatest invention. Congress awards creation of telephone to Italian inventor living in New York. Uh oh. Canada's inferiority complex takes another blow.

"Bell was either a thief, a fraud, or extraordinarily lucky."
posted on Jun 22, 2002 - View this thread

Giving telemarketers a taste of their own medicine. It seems too good to be true, but Tom Mabe is managing to make money by messing with their minds. His tormenting even extends to the web. His page is currently the top result on a Google for telemarketers, which is likely a thorn in their side. He's thought up some great responses to use when for some strange reason you just can't hang up the phone. Besides saying you're dead, what have you said to get rid of them?
posted on May 23, 2002 - View this thread

Imagine you are moving between apartments. Check out this Verizon "How do I..." page. Over 40 questions are answered, but the 2nd most obvious question one might have is strangely absent. Then try to order a basic cable service from Time Warner Cable. Do you have other examples of corporate sites that are less than helpful when what you want is less than what they would like to sell - or when you want to cancel?
posted on May 20, 2002 - View this thread

Can't remember your phone number? At the phonespell.org website you can get a list of all the possible word combinations made by your phone number. If you have 1's and 0's in your number, the possibilities are fewer.
posted on Feb 26, 2002 - View this thread

Don't like blowing people off? Let these guys do it for you.
Possibly the best idea ever? Does anybody know of services like this in other cities?
Be sure to listen to the outgoing message...
posted on Oct 24, 2001 - View this thread

Your Phone Number Touch Tones Are Copyrighted! Not to mention the touch tone sequence to just about any other phone number you'll ever dial. You've got two choices: a) Pay a licensing fee, or b) throw all your telecommunications equipment away.

Brilliant. Wish I had thought of it.
posted on Oct 4, 2001 - View this thread

This weekend's DialTones is yet another fascinating "found sound" performance. (Let's just hope Andras Schiff's not in attendance.)
posted on Aug 29, 2001 - View this thread

A new wrinkle in the tale of TV vs. Telephone. Cable TV over your phone lines? I doubt it will fly, but who knows?
posted on Jan 23, 2001 - View this thread

Kill all the phones. Kill all the phones.
posted on Jul 11, 2000 - View this thread

What Exactly have they bought?: "The Orange mobile telephone company has purchased Ananova, a virtual newscaster and information provider, in a $142.5 million deal with the British news agency Press Association" (via RobotWisdom, via Useit.com). Can someone please inform us just what exactly this Orange company has bought?
posted on Jul 11, 2000 - View this thread

Dial a CEO: Every month, Working Assets Long Distance, a phone plan managed by a progressive San Francisco-based citizen-action group dedicated to environmental and social-justice issues, highlights on its customers' phone bill two issues currently under debate (violence against women, gun control, road-building in national parks, etc.), plus the telephone numbers of the top corporate or political people involved in the issue, whose cage you can rattle at no charge. Targets have included senators, congressmen and the US president, as well as CEOs like Exxon/Mobil's Lee Raymond and Home Depot's Arthur Blank. "It's important to target the CEOs directly because they have ultimate responsibility for these issues," says Working Assets citizen action director Janet Nudelman. "They don't like it when they receive four or five thousand calls, but it certainly gets their attention"
posted on Jul 2, 2000 - View this thread

National Park Service removes the Lonely Phone. Thousands mourn.
posted on May 25, 2000 - View this thread