Allo?

On July 1, 2008, California will join most of Europe in banning cellular phone handsets in cars. This is one of many areas of the law where California has become more European. The move comes at a time when communication gizmos are multiplying faster than the Jolie-Pitt family and tech-savvy consumers are working overtime to keep up with the innovations. Now we'll have to leave those fancy innovations in the glove compartment and install the cyborg earpieces over our pinnas.

I'm upset about the ban because I won't be able to use my new handset in my car. I got this nifty little communication gadget from the phone company a few weeks ago and have completely fallen in love with it. It's a flexible wire designed to drape over your hand with a microphone attachment for your pinky finger and a speaker over the thumb. You can purchase the wires in different lengths for smaller or larger hands so that the attachment fits snugly against your skin. As the salesman at the phone shop told me, there is nothing worse than a loosely moored phone.

The wire for the mic and speaker attach to a hub, which is about an inch thick and has a five line LCD screen with a green backlight reminiscent of early DOS computers. Most users like to keep the phone on their left hand, but I prefer the model oriented for the right, since it lets me look like the guy in the promotional material. The phone is almost impossible to misplace because as long as you have your hand, you'll have your phone.


Cingular is in talks with Hwang Woo-Suk, a South Korean biomedical scientist, to develop a microchip which can house all the phone's information. A keypad will be placed on the back of the user's hand, but no other changes will be made. I have volunteered for an experimental installation with Woo-Suk and could be experiencing the bliss of total connectivity as soon as next year.

I'm really happy with my flex phone and was looking forward to using it in my car this summer. Instead I'll have to pull it off quickly when I'm pulled over and tell the patrolman that I was just faking a phone with a hang loose symbol. Honest, officer, who talks into their hand? If only Tatum O'Neal had such creativity.