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Motorola's Dumb Phone
Finally a mobile phone manufacturer has caved into my demands for a 'just a phone' mobile... well, okay, maybe not for me...
Known about this for awhile now, but details were skim, so it's nice to see that Motorola is making the Motofone into not only a simple, low-cost mobile phone, but also one that puts some newer technologies to good use.
Really hope they can find a way to get it in the market here in the US. I want simple damnit! 
Known about this for awhile now, but details were skim, so it's nice to see that Motorola is making the Motofone into not only a simple, low-cost mobile phone, but also one that puts some newer technologies to good use.
The phone's most distinctive feature is its screen, a high-contrast reflective display using a new technology invented at MIT. Commercialized by E Ink of Cambridge, MA, the display has been described as electronic paper. Like paper, it does not rely on a backlight, as in LCDs, or a constant supply of electricity, as in emissive displays based on organic light-emitting devices. Indeed, it uses no power to display an image--only to change the image on the screen. The image itself is composed of tiny spheres containing nanoscopic black and white particles. Russell Wilcox, E Ink's president and CEO, says the particles are something like tiny bits of ink and paper. Whether the spheres appear black or white depends on the charge of an underlying electrode. A negative electrode repels the negatively charged black particles, forcing them to the top of the sphere, and attracts the positively charged white particles, pulling them to the bottom and out of sight. The result is a black dot. Dots of various shades of gray can be created by changing the charge at different intervals, allowing black and white particles to mix. The display is very easy to see even in full sunlight but uses much less energy than an LCD, Wilcox says.
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