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October 11, 2004

Takes a Licking and Stops Ticking

Lately, I have been involved in an experiment run by fellow Media Lab gradutate student Nathan Eagle. As part of this experiment, I get to use a Nokia 6600 cell phone. I have to admit, it's pretty cool. It has a color display, a camera, polyphonic ring-tones, and bluetooth.

It is not, however, indestructible... Last Thursday, I was running some errands in Boston, and my cell phone fell onto the street. Unfortunately, I did not realize this until I reached the curb. Rushing back in a failed attempt to retrieve my cell phone, I could only stand back and watch as my phone was run over by a bus. Yes, the phone was perfectly lined up with the wheels of the bus and was run over three times.

Now, it would be unreasonable to expect the phone to continue working, and it certainly didn't. The phone did, however, manage to stay in one piece, which was pretty impressive. The SIM card and the flash memory card were still intact, and Nathan was gracious enough to give me a new phone so that I could continue participating in the experiment. All I had to do was swap the SIM cards and flash memory cards, and I was good to go.

I did, however, lose a few photos of Howard Dean that I had taken with the phone earlier that week during a Democracy for America fundraiser.

Pictures of the damaged phone after the jump...

Above: The front of the phone, which was lying face-down as it was run over. If you click on the pic, you can see the damage in more detail.


Above: A side view of the phone. It manage to stay intact as it was being run over. I'm impressed!

Posted by Dean at October 11, 2004 11:36 PM