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T-Phone concept for old people – because old people can’t dial numbers

Categories: Devices
By: , IntoMobile
Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 1:42 PM

T-Phone concept for the elderly replaces dialing with RFID buttonsThis one is a bit strange. The T-Phone concept from Jeong-Kyun Nam almost seems to make fun of old people – sorry, the elderly. Apparently, while even babies can use the iPhone, Jeong-Kyun Nam thinks that the wiser-generation can’t even muster the strength or mental willpower to tap out a 7 or 9 digit number sequence.

T-Phone concept for the elderly replaces dialing with RFID buttons

The T-Phone features large numbers on the keypad, but adds an RFID feature that dials the number associated with a particular RFID button. Bring the RFID button close to the phone and hit the “Talk” key, and T-Phone will dial the contact stored on the RFID button. Barely more complicated than the baby-toy that requires tots to match up a square or round block with an appropriate hole, the T-Phone negates the complexity of actually dialing a phone number to reach a loved one.

Anyone else think this concept is a bit offensive to the elderly?

[Via: Yanko Design]

Thanks, Teemu for the heads up! 

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About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • Antoine of MMM/Brighthand

    Honestly, I like this concept. Considering how much I used to rearrange the magnets on my grandma’s fridge when I was younger, picture doing the same thing on the fridge with a bunch of pics, and the reciever right next to this.

    Having a frequently-dialed list would be handy for this for those times those tags are not available.

    As for being offensive to the elderly, I would think its more or less offensive to those who just don’t want to admit that they don’t remember numbers, only faces.

  • Will Park

    You make a good point about elderly people forgetting numbers and remembering faces.

  • Gomathi

    Its really good concept.I think this will be more helpful for old people..

  • Troy

    I still think they will struggle.

  • Anne

    If you knew somebody slipping into Alzheimer’s, you wouldn’t think this was making fun of old people at all. My mother lost her ability to dial numbers before she lost her ability to carry on a conversation. This phone would have been great at that stage in her life.