Mobile makers set sights on grandparents

The Daily Star, Virginie Grognou, February 26, 2013

An employee holds Apple's iPhone 4s (L) and Samsung's Galaxy S III at a
 store in Seoul in this file photo from August 24, 2012. (REUTERS/Lee
Jae-Won/Files)

                              

BARCELONA: As smartphone giants Apple and Samsung battle for the wallets of tech-savvy youngsters, a growing number of manufacturers is trying to lure a fast-growing new market: their grandparents.

Handset makers at the world's biggest mobile fair in Barcelona, Spain, showed off a slew of new devices aimed at the hundreds of millions of older people put off by the complexity of the latest iPhones and Android-powered smartphones.

One of the leaders of the segment in Europe, Austrian firm Emporia, launched a new handset, the Emporia Connect, at the February 24-28 Mobile World Congress.

The sleek-looking black and silver flip phone is designed not to be "stigmatising" yet easy enough for older buyers to use, said Emporia's general manager for France, Christophe Yerolymos.

It has a keypad with larger numbers and an emergency button that will send an SOS along with data pinpointing the location of the phone.

The phone features a system called Emporia Me, with an array of remote control features for the owner's family, allowing a child or grandchild to check the device's location, battery status, or ensure the volume is up.

While it is not a smartphone and has no mapping service, it does have an orientation feature that lets a user push a single button to get turn-by-turn audible instructions for returning to a car while on a shopping trip, for example.

"Emporia is a company in growth, strong growth, even in the heart of the economic crisis we're in at the moment in Europe," said Yerolymos.

Japan's Fujitsu rolled out a European version of a smart phone for seniors, the Stylistic S01, which first launched in mid-2012 in Japan where it lured buyers from a wider age range than the group anticipated, from 45 years upwards.

It is an Android-based smartphone with large, simplified icons, and a "family alert" button that will send a message along with geo-localisation data.

But it also has an unusual touch-screen that will only respond when the user presses a bit harder so as to avoid launching applications by mistake, said Fujitsu Europe-Middle East-Africa product marketing director James Maynard.

"You can actually pre-touch and then when you know which button you want to press, you can exert a little bit more pressure," he said.

"It's made to grow with you so as you become more confident you naturally will exert more pressure on to the device. It's a stepping stone from a feature phone to a smartphone and using a touch panel for the first time."

Kapsys, a French firm, showed off its SmartConnect handset aimed at seniors.

The firm is in discussions with operators including Orange and is hoping to launch the device for about 400 euros ($520) in Europe in June and then in the United States by the end of 2013, said chief executive Aram Hekimian.

The SmartConnect boasts familiar features for the market: large icons, text in large characters, remote access for family members and also an SOS button with geo-localisation.

But it also incorporates a digital magnifier, enabling the user to roll the phone over text to facilitate reading, for example. The phone is rich in voice command functions, too, allowing the user to avoid fiddly buttons.

"Seniors today are used to having access to technology. As they get older they will want access to the same functions, the same technologies," Hekimian said.

Kapsys estimated the potential market for the telephone at 600 million people, he said. "Our goal is to capture one percent of that market by 2015."

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"THE OLD SOUL 2013 TOOLKIT" – Jan 13, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version)

“ …   Attitude Adjustment (Social Networking, Internet, New Paradigm)

Let me talk about number three, attitude adjustment. Some of you are starting to put together some things that Kryon has said in the past. Years ago, I channelled information that has now come to fruition and now you can begin to understand it, but then, you did not. We gave you this phrase: "When everyone can talk to everyone, there can be no secrets." In your current Earth society, this has now become something called social networking. Even before this term existed, I told you about it. There would be a time on the planet when all could talk to all, instantly. Can you see how that would disarm old paradigms of communication? Do you see how that might disarm information that was incorrect? Do you see how that might disarm drama and untruth? When everyone can talk to everyone - this is what is happening!

So, technology has given you the beginning of something that some of you, especially the older ones, look at and don't want anything to do with. You say, "It's a fad of the young people." I want you to adjust your attitudes toward this. Let a young person show you what they can do and how many friends that they can talk to all at once, instantly. Let them show you what happens when they want to communicate something so they put it in a certain place and, suddenly, hundreds know instantly. It is a new paradigm of the way Human Beings are going to communicate.

I wish to tell you where that's going to eventually lead, for social networking has no borders. What happens when a young Israeli is talking to a young Iranian or a Palestinian about something they saw on their networking devices? The ideas fly across the borders in a way that they never could before. What happens to the intermingling of friends in a technical paradigm where hundreds talk to each other instantly, perhaps in a land where they never did before? The result? It will continue to create understanding about those they only have heard about or have been told about. Now they can see and hear them, and will know they all want the same thing! This is a new paradigm of communication, but more than that, it becomes the way of the future, where everyone can know everything accurately and almost instantly.  It will be one of the catalysts for peace on the planet.

There is more here than meets the eye, dear ones, and your attitude is everything. For if you look at all this and say, "Well, this is a fad, and is just for the young," if this is you, then you're missing it totally. Let a young person explain what they can do and let the light bulb go on in your mind, for the evolution of the Human species is here and this is never going away. If you don't like all this, then social networking is only going to get worse for you! We say that in a humorous and facetious way.

There will come a day when this will be the way of it in all things. It will be impossible to be a hermit. You'll always have more friends than you thought possible. These are the things we are asking you to look forward to, but it's going to require you to look at them differently and adjust. That was number three. …”