http://www.smh.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/2004/01/21/1074360813226.html
Japanese telecom carriers, pioneers of internet-capable and
picture-snapping handsets, have now come up with the world's first
mobile phone that enables users to listen to calls inside their
heads - by conducting sound through bone.
The TS41 handset, manufactured by electronics firm Sanyo, was put on
sale by the Tu-Ka mobile phone group this month, drawing healthy
demand from customers who want to hear calls better in busy streets
and other noisy places.
The new phone is equipped with a "Sonic Speaker" which transmits
sounds through vibrations that move from the skull to the cochlea in
the inner ear, instead of relying on the usual method of sound hitting
the outer eardrum.
With the new handset, the key to better hearing in a noisy situation
is to plug your ears to prevent outside noise from drowning out
bone-conducted sounds.
If the user holds the handset to the top of the head, the back of the
head, cheekbone or jaw and plugs his or her left ear, the call will be
heard internally on the left side.
It is the first time that the bone conduction has been used in mobile
phones although the technology has been available for fixed-line
phones in Japan, mostly for elderly people, for the past two years.
The Tu-Ka group has launched a major advertising campaign for the new
mobile phone, featuring a young woman and a X-ray image of her skull
using the handset.
A spokesman at Tu-Ka Cellular Tokyo said it was too early to declare
the TS41 a success, but retail store clerks said they were seeing a
healthy demand for it.
"We have lots of inquires from young women thanks to the television
commercial," said Tomoyuki Harasawa, a sales consultant at a Bic
Camera consumer electronics store in Yurakucho, central Tokyo.
"The actual buyers are mostly businessmen in their 30s and 40s,"
Harasawa said.
"We sell four to five TS41s a day, a good figure for Tu-Ka, which lags
far behind rival mobile operators" such as DoCoMo and Vodafone.
The mobile phone is priced at ¥7800 ($A95) each at the discount store.
"I don't know if this is going to be a big hit, but it will be
possible for Tu-Ka to raise its market share since this high-profile
handset has improved its brand recognition among consumers," Harasawa
said.
Tu-Ka firms belong to Japan's second-largest telecom carrier, KDDI
group.
But Tu-Ka subscribers account for only a small percentage of the
market, far less than the roughly 20 per cent for the "au" brand in
the same KDDI group and the more than 50 per cent for industry leader
DoCoMo.
Customers who examined the new phone on the Bic Camera sales floor had
mixed reactions.
Masaya Iwata, a 31-year-old accountant, said the product was
interesting but he was not sure if he would buy it because he uses his
mobile less and less for talking.
"I use my mobile for picture-taking and emailing rather than having
conversations," he said.
Japan's top mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo launched "i-mode" phones
in February 1999, offering internet surfing, emailing and video
watching on mobile handsets.
And J-Phone, now rebranded Vodafone to underline that it is controlled
by the British-based telecoms giant, launched picture-taking handsets
in November 2000.
Nearly every new mobile handset in Japan now has a built-in digital
camera enabling users to send images taken with their mobiles via
email to other handsets or computers.
Tomohiro Abukawa, a 34-year-old hair stylist, said he liked the
bone-conducting phone, noting railway stations and streets were often
too noisy to talk.
"I may get this as it is also small," he said.
But one woman in her 20s said she found the phone "scary". "Isn't this
bad for your health?" she asked.
Another woman, in her 30s, said she was interested in the mobile phone
but was self-conscious.
"What troubles me is that I may look weird if I'm talking with the
phone pressed between my eyebrows," she said.
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