Toughen up your phone - avoiding scratches
Sometimes, us gadget users are a whiny lot. Remember the brouhaha when the iPod touch first appeared, as people started complaining that the screens on the unit were getting scratched? It turned out that in at least some cases, they were keeping them in their pockets with their keys. I mean, honestly what does Apple have to do? Print a big warning sign on the side of the box, saying "please do not take Exacto Knife to screen, as it might damage the device"? Clearly, some of these gadgets have higher IQs than the people using them.
Still, things could be resolved soon, thanks to a new development from Nissan. This week, the company said that it will licence its "scratch shield" paint to NTT DoCoMo, to put on mobile phones. The scratch shield paint is self-healing, meaning that it recovers from scratches overnight.
This paint isn't going to save a mobile phone from getting scuffed up if you hurl it across the room, or sit on it while packing a few coins in your pocket. But it will heal fine scratches, and even slightly more severe ones will get back to over the course of a week. It is also more scratch resistant than conventional paint in the first place. That's good to know, because my phone has a habit of falling out of my shirt pocket when I bend over, and the sound of it clattering on the floor is becoming slightly jarring.
Unfortunately, NTT DoCoMo is a Japanese mobile telecommunications carrier. It seems as though the Japanese, once again, are getting all of the cool technology first. For now, I guess we'll just have to keep gingerly fingering our Blackberries, iPhones, and Windows Mobile devices. Or perhaps you should just buy a pair of capacitive gloves so that you can stroke your touchscreen while keeping it away from potentially damaging fingers.
Or, you know, if you were feeling really low tech, you could always just buy yourself a screen protector and a mobile phone case...
Danny Bradbury, MSN Tech and Gadgets
Comments
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Posted by: Mark | Nov 13, 2009 1:28:17 AM
If it's so scary scratching the screen of your phone, then buy one that flips. Touch screen phones are nice and all,( I have one) but really, it doesn't matter what phone you have, all you need in a phone is something that can call, and text. You don't REALLY need to update your Facebook or MSN on your phone, it's just the internet, I think you can wait till you get home.
Also, all of these new features on these high tech phones, are posing as a safety concern, look at the new laws in Canada, banning the use of cell phones in cars, why do you think? Because there's so much new stuff to do on your brand new Blackberry Storm, you can't focus on the road.
Posted by: Tuan | Nov 15, 2009 5:28:52 PM
@ Mark: Not even 10 years ago, texting was unheard of in Canada, but now it became a need for a lot of people, so who are you to dictate what people need on a cell phone? A lot of people find that internet on a handset is handy (more than just for Facebook or MSN), especially for people that don't OWN a car.
Granted, people should not use their cell phone in the car, like people should not change the CD or the radio station, while driving because it is a distraction and it needs only one distraction at the wrong moment for it to become an accident. It's not the new features that pose a safety concern, it's human behavior. People have been distracted in cars way before Facebook or MSN came in the picture.