From All Things Considered the remote California town of Iowa Hill will finally get land-line phone service. And their cell coverage is spotty, at best. The woman interviewed explains that people in the community have designated areas where there is cell reception as phone booths; a nice colloquialism since we’re likely to envision a purpose-built structure rather than a warchalked wooded area. She also describes the local 911-proxy: fire your gun three times in the air and hope someone comes to your aid.

My dad received the following offer in the mail: a chance to win a free cremation. If he enters, he’ll have a chance to win each month!

They don’t specify, but I guess that must be each month until you die?

What’s especially fascinating is their connection between cremation and mobility:

“With everyone moving around these days,
placing a loved one in a ‘local’ cemetery
may not be as functional as it used to be.”

Portigal Consulting has been doing some projects recently on mobile devices, but I never thought to include cremation urns in that category.

The best part of the letter is the disclaimer at the end of the second page:

“Please accept our apologies if this letter
has reached you at a time of serious illness
or death in your family.”

How compassionate.

“Anti-Groping Appli” by games developer Takahashi

was released in late 2005 but has only recently climbed up popularity rankings, reaching No. 7 in this week’s top-10 cell phone applications list.

The application flashes increasingly threatening messages in bold print on the phone’s screen to show to the offender: “Excuse me, did you just grope me?” “Groping is a crime,” and finally, “Shall we head to the police?”

Users press an “Anger” icon in the program to progress to the next threat. A warning chime accompanies the messages.

The application, which can be downloaded for free on Web-enabled phones, is for women who want to scare away perverts with minimum hassle and without attracting attention.

In 2000 I made my first trip to Japan to help our client understand the role of mobile phones (“ketai”) in Japanese culture (in order to discover unmet opportunities for the company with their own customer base). We learned a great deal (both from participation and from observation!) about the indirect manner of communication (for example, the absence of “no”) and heard many stories about how the mobile, through its email capability, had enabled ways to circumvent this. People told us stories of negative feedback from a boss to an employee, or a relationship breakup taking place via the phone, and how that was acceptable.

If it’s culturally difficult to scream “Take your hands off me, you @#$%^$ freak!” on a subway train, then this application makes sense. It seems to acknowledge a need and a culturally-appropriate vector for responding to that need.

Steve in Tokyo in 2000