I'll get around to posting a comment later...
Is it a make-up mirror? Is it a tiny frisbee? No, it's the bonkers Cyrcle Phone, with its TWO headphone jacks
Oh, CES. Each year, interspersed between the big product launches from Dell and Samsung are smaller companies, often with some truly bonkers kit. Take, for example, the Cyrcle Phone. It’s round. Like, really round. Squint a bit, and it looks like a high-tech make-up mirror running stock Android 9.0 Pie. It has two headphone …
-
-
-
Friday 10th January 2020 23:04 GMT DJV
"Roll"
Yep, I bet it will roll fantastically.
Now, instead of the age-old tedium of dropping your phone onto the pavement/sidewalk and instantly smashing the screen, you will now have the delightful choice of outcomes where you drop it and watch it continue to roll:
a) into the road, where it will miraculously escape all the thundering traffic wheels - though you, chasing it in a panic, won't.
b) into the road and straight down a drain - I wonder if those dual headphone sockets are waterproof...
c) into the road where it will come to rest (wedged more like) in some tram tracks totally unharmed, though you, of course, will be unable to unwedge it before the oncoming tram reduces it (and possibly you as well) to its (and your) component molecules.
d) off the pathway in the local park and onto the grass in front of the man driving the motorised mowing machine. The man is, of course, oblivious to your shouting as he is wearing headphones and listening to a very old Genesis song, yum de dum de dum.
e) off the pathway in the local park and onto the grass before coming to an abrupt halt in a fresh and only partially concealed doggie "present" that the dog's owner couldn't be arsed to bag up and dispose of properly.
f) after its sharper than expected edge has sliced off at least one of your toes as you were stupid enough to wear sandals.
-
-
-
-
Friday 10th January 2020 14:20 GMT ElReg!comments!Pierre
Re: On the plus side...
Recently I went to a print shop to get a photo printed as a gift for an old lady. The snap had been shot by my wife on her smartphone (Ugh) so it was in 3:2 format (re-ugh). I took care to re-frame it properly and change it to the proper 4:3 format for photographs, only to have the millenial shopkeeper tell me that she'd have to crop it as it was not in a standard format.
Now what if I had come with a round pic !
-
Friday 10th January 2020 16:04 GMT really_adf
Re: On the plus side...
The snap had been shot by my wife on her smartphone (Ugh) so it was in 3:2 format (re-ugh). I took care to re-frame it properly and change it to the proper 4:3 format for photographs, only to have the millenial shopkeeper tell me that she'd have to crop it as it was not in a standard format.
"Proper photographs" - that is, on 35mm film - are 3:2 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/135_film). Hence 6x4 (inch) prints.
-
Friday 10th January 2020 16:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: On the plus side...
Proper photographs are either 15 on 120 (6x4.5, 4:3) or 12 on square (6x6) or 6x7. Or half plate. Or full plate. "35mm" is repurposing ciné film for compact cameras.
Mine's the one with the Mamiya 645 in the
pocketbig heavy canvas bag with tripod. And the Bronica for studio work.
-
-
-
-
Friday 10th January 2020 14:24 GMT Jamie Jones
On the right track...
... still a bit too wide for the hand, though. Now if they narrowed it a bit, and contoured it to fit the hand more naturally, they may have a winning design, back like the phone shapes of 20 years ago...
Oh, and for a communications company, they don't have much to say - their website has an average of 20 words per screen. Crappy PR faff for the hard of concentrating. Hardly trendsetting.
-
-
Monday 13th January 2020 13:03 GMT phuzz
I'm pretty sure my Android phone will only output audio to one Bluetooth device at a time, and I think that plugging in headphones would turn off the BT audio, so the only way to share audio with someone would be a headphone splitter.
At least they're sharing headphones, and not just using the phone speaker and subjecting you to tinny reproductions of whatever 'the youth' listen to these days.
-
-
Friday 10th January 2020 16:00 GMT Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
It's this...
It's this sort of vacuous and meaningless marketing bollocks that supports my view that it's really the engineers that should do the advertising. From their website...
"A non-rectangular phone for non-rectangular people, the new Cyrcle Phone exists to inspire a world where you can be you"
-
Friday 10th January 2020 17:03 GMT Pascal Monett
Re: It's this...
Not to mention "sharing is the new black". Almost made the bile come up.
At first glance, that website is something that I interpret as a massive sham and want nothing to do with.
I'm obviously not the target market.
Then again, when I read "dTOOR founder Christine Cyr", the name of the phone became quite obvious.
-
-
Friday 10th January 2020 16:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Give us back your nerd cred now!
Also the Toshiba G450, which combined being an Internet dongle with being a usable phone. I used one with an early thin and light laptop, for the era (2008-2009) it was jaw-dropping for many people. Especially when I dialled on-screen and made the call using a Bluetooth headset. The point was, you could actually disconnect it from the computer and make phone calls with it directly. If you had tiny hands.
-
-
-
-
Monday 13th January 2020 20:57 GMT Ken Moorhouse
Re: but the Walkman was a rubbish phone.
Yes, but in those days Simplex communication was not a bad method of communication. Slow. but effective for leisurely conversations. Record your message on the walkman, pop the cassette into a mailer and send it to the recipient, who will then record their message and send it back to you.
-
-
-
Friday 10th January 2020 17:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
What's this obsession with headphone jacks of late ?
I try and do all I can to avoid using mine, as it will be where physical wear and tear (headphone jack and USB port) where the failure will occur that will force me to buy a new phone.
Magnetic USB connector and bluetooth earbugs, and my phone should last until the Next Big Thing.
Oh, and my battery can be replaced.
-
Friday 10th January 2020 22:28 GMT JohnFen
Re: What's this obsession with headphone jacks of late ?
Headphone jacks are incredibly useful. I consider one essential, mostly because I have yet to see bluetooth earbuds that sound good, can go at least a full day without recharging, and don't drop out on me every so often.
I've never had a headphone socket (or USB, for that matter) fail on me, but I confess that I appear to be charmed or something -- I also seem to be the only person who can use a phone for more than a couple of years without cracking the screen, despite not using a case.
-
-
Saturday 11th January 2020 20:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What's this obsession with headphone jacks of late ?
A battery will wear out (2 years?) before a headphone jack will. But I guess it also depends how well the phone is made, and how easy repairs / replacements are (a swappable battery is easier than a soldered jack).
The only time I've had a headphone jack break is when knocking/dropping the thing it's plugged into. Which by any case, if you knock/drop could also break anything (bluetooth included).
-
-
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Friday 10th January 2020 23:40 GMT EVP
Ingenious!
With two headphone jacks they can make a courageous move twice! First goes away one jack, then the other one. Then the whole company disappears in one big courageous bang, along with VC investments. Voilà, their product roadmap for years 2020-2022.
I apologize for being a bit snarky. Their fine product will sell well and the two founders will become rich.
-
Monday 13th January 2020 14:47 GMT imanidiot
Marketards
Designed by marketeers completely devoid from realism living in their own universe. A circular device is not easier to hold, nor likely more intuitive to work with. More likely, they managed to score a whole heap of cheapo circular displays left over from a test run from a manufacturer and never intend to deliver more than a single batch of devices (This is actually more common than you think. It is also the reason some kickstarters fail to deliver anything, because they find out they sold 200k devices, when they only have 20k pieces of a critical component, and buying 180k additional parts is prohibitively expensive)
-
Wednesday 15th January 2020 11:23 GMT Dave559
trashbat.co.ck
Very sadly, the Nathan Barley website featuring the equally innovative Wasp T12 Speechtool, which had the most excellent domain trashbat.co.ck, is no longer online, and is not very well archived by archive.org.
There are times when I am absolutely convinced that Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris actually do live somewhen in the future, but periodically came back in time to produce certain tv shows as dire warnings of our fates to come...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
