cell phone
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The issue: It’s easy to stay up too late by browsing the Internet on a cell phone instead going to sleep. The recommended solution to this is “don’t do that,” but it can be difficult to have enough self-discipline. Proposal: The solution is simple: before you go to bed, you should put your cell phone…
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Background: It’s easily possible to receive an overwhelming number of phone notifications these days. Typically, this is a mix of emails, text messages, multiple messaging apps, and the occasional demanding apps spamming you with notifications that “you earned 10% off your next order!” The Issue: It’s possible to silence some of these alerts, but sometimes…
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Background: It is common for people to be glued to their cell phones for nearly 100% of their waking hours. This is especially true now that phone batteries last for hours even under heavy use and fast video-capable cellular data is available in most populated areas. The issue: It is commonly suggested that people should…
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Background: Yoga is often thought of as an activity that requires focus, and is thus incompatible with meaninglessly scrolling through random Internet content. And it’s true that most yoga positions do not leave the yoga practitioner’s hands free to casually browse a cell phone while yoga-ing. The issue: Unfortunately, the result of this is that…
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When using a computer, phone, or tablet, it is occasionally the case that a user must type in numbers. Typing numbers on a computer with a 12-digit physical numeric keypad is fast and easy (Figure 1). Unfortunately, laptops frequently no longer have these hardware keypads, and smartphones and tablets never did. The issue: The “soft”…
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The issue: Using a cell phone outdoors can present two main problems, as shown in Figure 1. Specifically, you may be far from a tower (and thus, get poor reception) and the harsh light of the noon sun may make it very difficult to read the text on your phone, especially with the recently-popularized “dark…
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Background: People are often glued to their cell phones at all times, thanks primarily to the ease of finding an amusing distraction on the Internet. The issue: There have been various proposals to mitigate the scourge of “phone addiction,” for example, setting your phone screen to black-and-white / grayscale in order to reduce its appeal…
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Get exercise and improve your self-control with this new eco-friendly hand-crank-powered cell phone!
The issue: It is frequently asserted that people are addicted to cell phones. If only there were a technical solution to this problem! Proposal: Here’s a simple solution to discourage casual cell phone use: a cell phone with two features: A strict limit on the amount of time you can use each program. (This feature…
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Background: Nearly all modern cell phones have the same touch-screen form factor. Except for a few buttons of low importance (e.g. volume adjustment, power, camera shutter), all interaction is done through the screen itself. The issue: This style of interaction makes use of only one finger, and leaves the remaining four fingers with nothing to…
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The issue: When parking on the street or in an enormous shopping center parking lot, it can be easy to lose track of exactly where one’s car is parked. Since cell phones constantly record a person’s GPS location as a standard feature (if you are not familiar with this, look up “iPhone Track location”—the images are…
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