LINC: Concept Phone Accounts for Our Inevitable Antipathy
The "LINC" is a mobile phone concept has one particularly novel idea at heart: the device is built with a one-year lifecycle in mind, designed to be easily recycled every year as upgraded versions become available. This mythical device would be leased, not owned, with yearly upgrades built into the rate.
I admire the pragmatism of the idea. We tend to toss out our phones every couple of years already. Why not account for our slavering neophilia right up front? And if a yearly upgrade cycle is too much, perhaps a slightly less expensive plan could be offered on a two-year replacement schedule?
Two trends in the mobile market portend the possibility of a LINC-like concept becoming feasible: the iPhone and its simple rate plan; the recent outpouring of all-you-can-eat plans from the big four American carriers. The iPhone is showing that the general user base is happy with a smartphone/media player hybrid with middling text input capability and clearly all the other phone manufacturers are chasing that idea at least in part.
The LINC's got a beat and you can dance to it. Too bad Kaleidoscope, the development consultancy that came up with the concept, isn't in the sort of business that will make it simple to develop the idea any further.
Linc - The Lifecycle Concept Phone [TheGreenerGrass.org]
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At least for me, replacing my phone every two years or so isn't due to some innate desire for a more modern phone, but due to the shoddy workmanship/material which results in some form of breakage. This product just seems to make this process more overt.
Every couple of years? People in the US throw away 150 million phones a year. That's probably close to total penetration. The world buys a billion new phones every year. Most of the discarded phones, contra anonymous @1, work just fine.
This reminds me of the book "Cradle to Cradle" by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. McDonough has a good presentation at TED.com where you can hear the basic premise of his paradigm shifting proposal. Just search for his name and you should find it. I think it's 20 minutes long. I would then recommend reading his book. His arguments are very attractive and this phone is a prime example of them. Basically, before you manufacture the device, figure out how you can break it down and reuse all its parts. None of the objects or materials that are fodder for recycling efforts were ever designed to be reused. The process of recuperating usable materials out of them involve exposure of more toxins than would be safely entombed were the devices buried. Surely, we've heard the stories out of Poland and China where street entrepreneurs attempt to recycle computer parts and turn their workshops into superfund sites.
To see that the concept of recycling is entering into the production of devices in the design phase makes me happier. In the time of dire pronouncements about a future eco-war (see the post about the Pentagon and their take on the coming hostilities over dwindling resources), it is refreshing to see that human beings may still have the chance to use their greatest advantage, their brains, to figure a way out of the situation we find ourselves in today.