- A US inventor plans to have a $10 paper mobile phone
on the market later this year.
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- The disposable device is the brainchild of Randice-Lisa
Altschul, who has 22 patents on the technology. Called the Phone-Card-Phone,
it is the thickness of three credit cards and made from recycled paper
products. It comes with 60 minutes of calling time and a hands-free attachment.
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- Despite its name, there is no actual phone card involved.
When users are finished they can either chuck the phone away, or charge
extra time via their credit card.
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- The phones will be available in three ways - through
retail - in supermarkets and clothes stores such as The Gap; from vending
machines; and as promotions -where companies such as McDonalds would dish
them out along with a Big Mac and fries.
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- It may sound like pie in the sky, but Altschul says her
business, New Jersey, NY-based Dieceland Tech Corp, already has 100 million
units on order. And the phone card companies themselves are among those
putting in orders for the products - she reckons they are worried that
the device will replace their market.
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- The phones, 300 million of which should be produced in
the US in the first year, are due to be unleashed on the US market in the
third quarter of 2001. Six months later they will be available globally.
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- The gadgets are initially aimed at "moms, kids and
senior citizens", according to Altschul. "I'm not going after
the business-man market."
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- "I'm going cheap and dumb," she told The Register,
revealing: "In monetary terms, I want to be the next Bill Gates."
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- Also in the pipeline is a paper laptop. This device,
at the prototype stage, is expected to cost $20 and act as a Web access
device. It is due for launch at the end of 2002.
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- You can catch a glimpse of the products here - http://www.dtcproducts.com/home.html
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