The Pokia ... Return to the future?

Greetings to you all. Well summer school is over and I am free for the next 3 weeks. What a different 6 weeks its been. I had 45 students for the 1st "semester" read: first 3 weeks, and 39 students for the 2nd semester. I was teaching high school US history, Pre-history to the present! The class was 4 hours long and we did a chapter a day. It was like teaching a seminar class. The students were mostly high achievers, but the testing results were puzzling. Half the class consistently failed the chapter tests, but the did well on the midterm and final. And these were 11th graders. Oh well. I had to deal with the cell phone issue for the first time this summer. I caught several students text messaging answers in class, no they were not test answers but homework answers. Man they did a lot of typing on their phones, and they all got the answers... wrong! Sigh! Speaking of phones, have you heard of the latest in cell phones? Its an old fashioned telephone handset, wired to your cell phone. Read on for more info.

Newfangled cell phones sure are nifty. But some people wax nostalgic for the heavy-duty telephone receivers of the '60s and '70s. At least that's what Nicholas Roope is banking on. The Londoner has wired an old phone handset to a concealed cell phone; his invention, called the Pokia, has landed him on the covers of magazines and in newspapers in the United Kingdom, Sweden and the United States. Roope says as futuristic cell phones get smaller and more powerful, design becomes less important. "The very simple, robust, focused, single-minded design loses its way," he says. Plus, he adds, the Pokia's a great way to get dates. "The first thing that happens is people say: 'Does it work?' And then inevitably you say: 'Phone me on it.' Then you have their number." From Wired News 7/30/04 Do a google search on Pokia and check out Nicholas's web page.

Later,

Mr. T

Social Science Rules!
Defoliate Bush in 2004!

Comments

[beautiful Pokia handsets here]

These models are beutiful.

[jamie]

Check out this one, it's bluetooth! no wires

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=6332756240&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

[Steve]

Here's some new models:
www.pokiaonline.com

[Iwana]

Here is the newest wireless Bluetooth model
http://www.pokia.us pretty cool isn't it.