News CPU, RAM, Android - all on one SIM card

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/02/18/cpu-ram-android-on-a-sim/1

 

Wow...

 

I still keep all my numbers on my SIM. It saves so much hassle when switching phones.

 

Holy miniturisation Batman!

 

Nice piece of tech, 10 years to reach the market.

 

Simply amazing! I think it's a great idea and definitely a very useful for us consumers.

 

Useless for me - what happens if I want a faster phone? Replace the whole SIM, and go through the whole trouble of backing up again...?

 

this.

 

I second that. A lot of work will need to be done before this hits our phones. I also wonder how this compares performance-wise to existing/upcoming products like snapdragon and qualcom's new chip? I can't imagine they've managed to squeeze in a 1GHz processor and 1080p-capable graphics in there. Therefore chances are it will see more use in low-end devices. However, that being said, the initial cost of such a sim-card is likely to be many times higher that existing sim-cards, at least in the beginning, potentially stifling it's uptake in that market.

Another side-effect might be the need to periodically upgrade your sim-card as better models come out. This, in my view, destroys one of the best things about sim-cards, which is that you can have one for years and use it in phone after phone after phone without any hassle. ( I've had my vodafone sim for 3 years and others for even longer)

 

if a "faster phone" isn't an oxymoron, it should be.

I'm also amazed by the feat.

I've long thought that the primary problems with the paradigms of "near & far" is unified data. If you could get the chip in a fob that just plugged into things, like a desktop, slate, and mobile platform, much the same way people use laptop docks, then the future may be closer than we suspect.

kudos to the SK Telecom team.

 

Overtly complex and staggeringly pointless once you take into account the fact that the phone will have to be redesigned to use this SIM; in which case, what's the point of sticking to the SIM form factor? You won't be able to use this in normal phones, I assume, and the phones that will be able to use it won't be able to use normal SIMs. They could have made it any shape they liked and it wouldn't make any difference.

What the humble SIM needs is much bigger storage so I can transfer my phonebook from phone to phone without problems. I had to get a smartphone that syncs with Outlook before I could satisfactorily move the contacts around. A micro-SD card these days can be GB in size. Surely it's not too much to ask for a SIM to be able to hold a few hundred texts and contacts?

 

Even if they succeed, battery sizes will still remain the same as manufacturers use the additional space for unnecessary stuff.

 

Ummm, Android uses the cloud for the contacts, calendar and e-mails anyway, so no need to store it on the card at all.

Nice tech though, although once to take into account Moore's law it becomes a tad outdated very quickly.

 

I think the phones won't shrink - if my phone was any smaller i'd never find it!

 

you should have seen my mums old nokia, you could lose it anyware

i doubt its as small as this (i dont know if this is faked or not

http://blog.loaz.com/media/smallest-cell-phone-lip-stick.jpg

 

what's the point in such a small phone? if you hold it to your ear the mic would be too far away from your mouth. how would you enter numbers quickly?

 

I'm all for making tech smaller, but why would I want the cpu and ram on my sim card?
I've had my sim since I had a nokia 3210, that thing would never be able to power a 3" touch screen smart phone!
Keeping texts and contacts etc on my sim card, Brilliant!
Having to buy a new sim card capable of running a newest handset and so removing the earlier positives... Rubbish!

 

Great concept, but I think the only realistic use would be if Android was stored on the SIM (with some sort of universal driver system) as, as somebody mentioned above, contacts/calendar etc. (apart from messages) are stored in the cloud, and CPU + RAM on a SIM would mean you really screw things up trying to upgrade.

Just think - SIM card, removable, holds all software and user data (swap CPU + RAM for more storage)
Phone - the hardware-side of the trip, swappable/upgradeable without losing any data.

 

To be honest, this sounds like a rather good offering! With the SIM holding the OS and user data this will mean we may have the opportunity to switch our choice of OS to suit our needs on our phones in a far simpler way than we currently can with laptops or PC's today, now that would make the mobile phone platform something amazing and perhaps manufacturers would concentrate more on real features than worrying about the UI or having to write their own slow or buggy software.

I don't doubt that the new "sims" would come to have some form of lifespan as sim card features and the OS support increases and mobile devices become smarter still to accommodate new technological advances and our ever demanding needs.