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Monday 21 December 2015

The NoPhone: A plastic slab for that special someone

Pros: Inexpensive, doesn't need a battery.
Cons: It's a rectangular slab of plastic that does absolutely nothing.
I'm talking about the NoPhone, which -- as the name implies -- has no camera, no screen, no music and, you guessed it, no phone. (It is, however, toilet bowl-resistant.)
The product of a successful Kickstarter campaign, the NoPhone comes in three models. There's the completely featureless $5 NoPhone Zero (aka "the least advanced phone ever created by mankind," according to its website), the $10 NoPhone (with fake buttons and ports) and the $15 NoPhone Selfie, which comes with an adhesive-backed mirror. All are guaranteed to do absolutely nothing, just like the Pet Rock from 1975's holiday season.
The $10 NoPhone features buttons that do nothing and a port that's useless. It is, however, toilet bowl-resistant.
"NoPhone simulates the exact weight and dimensions of your most beloved gadget in order to alleviate any feelings of inadequacy generated by the absence of a real smartphone," Van Gould wrote on his personal webpage. Gould is the co-founder of the company behind the "device," also called NoPhone.
The slab of plastic could be the perfect stocking stuffer for (a) your loved one who already has everything, (b) that person with extreme digital device envy or (c) someone you'd just as soon never hear from again.
So far, the NoPhone has sold more than 4,000 units, according to Gould, who also happens to be an art director for a New York ad agency. For whatever reason, Gould received a bulk order from Reunion Island, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. "I didn't even know this place existed," he told me.
The NoPhone began in 2014 as a Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $18,000 -- about the same time a now-famous potato salad recipe eventually pulled in more than $55,000. Coincidence? Sunspots? Or was it just the right time to appeal to a nation's oddball sense of humor?
Whatever the reason, the NoPhone touched on a basic truth: We can't seem to take our eyes off our phones. Go to any restaurant, and you'll see families with mom, dad and the kids all looking at their phones. Heck, I've even asked a surgeon if I could check my emails while he was operating on my arm. (He said I couldn't.)
"[The NoPhone is] definitely a joke," Gould told me, "but there's something true behind the joke."
For a product that does so little, it actually accomplishes a lot by reminding us to give our phones a rest. Gould said he swaps out his real smartphone for the NoPhone once a week during date nights with his girlfriend.
Now I'm thinking I should do something similar. Not that my marriage is in trouble, as far as I know. (My wife wasn't immediately available to comment.) It's just that I have a hard time keeping phones and tablets away from our bed. Maybe the NoPhone will keep my wife from snapping at me after my umpteenth email check in the middle of the night.
Others may want the NoPhone just because it's so absurd. And people do seem to want it. After getting off work, Gould spends his nights packing and shipping the plastic rectangles from his 400-square-foot apartment on New York's Upper West Side.
"I'm not sure if we'll be the next Apple, but who knows?" Gould said. "We're the biggest fake-phone company in the world."

Sunday 20 December 2015

Apple iPhone 6S selling at Best Buy for $1

The 16GB version normally sells for $200 with a two-year contract.CNET
Best Buy is trying to woo holiday shoppers by offering the latest iPhone for a buck.
As of Friday, the retail chain is selling the 16GB version of the iPhone 6S for $1 with a two-year contract with Verizon Wireless or Sprint. The 16GB version normally retails for $200 with a two-year contract.
With less than a week left in the holiday-shopping season, retailers are pushing last-minute deals to lure consumers. For tardy shoppers, that means potentially big discounts.
The $1 sale also applies to the 16GB iPhone 6. The retailer is offering the 16GB iPhone 6S in all four colors: silver, gold, Space Gray and Rose Gold. The iPhone 6 is available in Space Gray.
The sale, which ends Sunday, is good both online and in-store, a Best Buy spokeswoman said. To further sweeten the deal, Best Buy will give you a $200 gift card if you trade in an iPhone 5 or newer model iPhone when you purchase the 6 or 6S.