Boffins chapify Amazonian assistant using Belgian blowers

Antique Alexa telephones by Grain Design

More news featuring items from Belgium, although "news" is perhaps not quite the le mot juste seeing as this article has been languishing in my Drafts for over a year.  I had intended to start a new blog with it but then it occurred to me that I have enough of a job keeping this one going without adding a second one and besides which the idea featured in the article still fits the Eclectic Ephemera ethos, so here it is.  Despite being more than a year old the subject matter is still current and interesting and follows on nicely from my previous Belgian-based Tintin post.

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Indeed an antique Belgian telephone (like the Regent model, above) with Amazon Alexa built in is something I could just see Tintin using were he around today, although whether he could stretch to the eye-watering asking price is another matter (then again he might if he had Red Rackham's Treasure - get on with it Peter Jackson!!  Ahem, sorry.)

In any event (and to return to the current subject) the re-purposing of vintage - and in this case, non-functional - equipment to include modern technology is something I consistently admire, not only as a means of giving a new lease of life to what would be an otherwise redundant item destined for the scrapheap but also for just the sheer incongruity of the latest tech being hidden within something supposedly obsolete.

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I have featured similar ideas here before in the shape of the Tweephone - a rotary-dial telephone capable of sending Tweets - and the Twittertape, which went one better and used an antique tickertape machine hooked up to the internet to do the same thing.  Now we have the Alexaphone, a genius idea out of Los Angeles which sees antique telephones being converted to run Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant technology, such as is more commonly found in that company's Echo speakers.

As with most modern technology virtual assistance AI is largely a closed book to me and something I intend to keep that way, as the idea of artificial intelligence in general is not something I am especially keen on.  Nor am particularly enamoured with the glut of so-called "smart" technology now available - not only do we have the likes of Google Assistant, Windows Cortana and the aforementioned Amazon Alexa but also smartphones, smart TVs, smart meters and now even flippin' video doorbells all of which are recording your every word and movement!  Where it will all end I wouldn't like to say, but the whole business doesn't seem very "smart" at all (except for the companies that are harvesting the resultant data) and is something I will vehemently oppose for as long as possible.

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It is for this reason as well that I like the idea of these devices, for one particular aspect of their original design, the telephone hook, thwarts one of the virtual assistant's most invidious foibles - the fact that it is always "on" and therefore listening to everything that's going on around it.  Not so with the Alexaphone, which is only on when you lift the receiver!  No fear of some faceless, polo-necked eye-tea wallah in a metal and glass office somewhere in California transcribing what you had for breakfast this morning.  Instead just lift the receiver, ask your question and Alexa will respond - then just thank it and hang up.  Brilliant!

Whether this marriage of vintage and modern technology is worth upwards of $1500 I'll leave you to decide but - practical or not, art or no - it is nevertheless a splendid idea and one I am glad to see realised.

Forms, 'phones and frustrations

"Nooo, I DO NOT have a mobile number..."

I think I've made it clear on this blog before, but I am one of the few people remaining in this world who does without (and perfectly well without, I might add!) a mobile telephone and who has absolutely no intention of getting one.  (I warned you all some time ago, when I first mentioned the fact, that it might one day lead to a bit of a rant and today may well be that day!).  I don't think it is possible for me to succinctly explain how much I hate them - they way they rob people of manners and considerateness, replace common sense and restraint with imprudence and immoderation, and encourage banality over self-reliance and initiative - and just how much I consider their "essentialness" to be one of the biggest myths ever perpetrated on the modern world.

Before this turns into too much of an essay I should explain the series of events that has led to this post.  It all began the other week when I attempted to fill out an online form for something or other (I think it was a job application).  For the first few fields all was going well until I got to the box marked "Telephone (Mobile)".  Now up 'til this point I had always been able to bypass the request for a mobile number and simply move on.  Except this time a whole load of red warning signs and highlighted instructions appeared upon my pressing "Submit".   For perhaps only the second time in my experience, a mobile telephone number was a "required field"(!).

Source: ffffound.com via Bea on Pinterest

Not being the owner of such a device I had to make up some vaguely mobile-like number (lots of 0s and 7s are my favoured choice) before I could continue, but it confirmed to my mind an ever-more prevailing attitude that I (and others) are encountering.  My suspicions were first aroused when I perceived that, when providing my details at the request of some official lackey or other, the question "Do you have a mobile number?" had begun to subtly change.  First it lost its genuinely querying inflexion and became almost rhetorical (with the level of surprise registered when I explained that I do not own such an infernal appliance inversely proportionate to the perfunctoriness of the question).  Now the transformation is all but complete as the question has tended to become "What is your mobile number?" as if it is a foregone conclusion that I must possess - and make a note of this term, taken from The Chap magazine, for I have yet to find a better description - a chirruping horn of damnation. 

"He doesn't have a mobile number?!"

Then, as proof that I am not alone in this, Tupney encountered the selfsame problem last week in relation to her e-mail account.  I commiserated with her in the comments section using a phrase I've coined to describe this increasingly common attitude, which seemed to strike a chord with some of the other commenters and so convinced me that maybe there was blog material in it.  That phrase is - the presumption of technology.

I suppose when there are 62½ million of the things in the country, with 85% of the population in thrall to them and the "average person" owning two of the confounded machines the odds are stacked heavily against the likes of Tups and me, leading to the aforementioned conclusion on the part of most people/forms.  Still, it is dashed frustrating for those of us who get by perfectly well without to encounter this presumptive attitude.

"People walking around with 'phones stuck to their heads..."

Yet there is still 15% of the population without a mobile telephone, so is it not jumping the gun a little to start making it a compulsory field or otherwise insisting on the provision of a number?  The 'papers are full of stories about rural broadband (or lack thereof) & mobile provider coverage and the recent record low turnout for the England & Wales Police and Crime Commissioners election has been blamed in part on a lack of information - information that was almost exclusively available online but to which not everyone had access.  We may be seeing the creeping advancement and acceptance of technology into our lives but it is by no means universal and perhaps there should be a greater realisation that folk who haven't bought into this "technology for the sake of it" malarkey (or aren't in the position to benefit from it) still exist.

How long before it becomes impossible for those of us sans mobile 'phone to get by on a day-to-day basis?  Already we are seeing the advent of "pay by mobile" in certain high street shops and car parks.  Will mandatory mobile numbers beget mandatory mobile 'phones, perhaps?  In a related aspect, many adverts and competitions seen on television are increasingly becoming accessible only for those with a Farcebook account.  Again, I do not have one.  I almost feel marginalised!

FOR GOOD!
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I expect I'm preaching to the converted here and I'm sure many readers who do have mobile telephones use them sensibly and recognise them for the occasionally-useful tools they can be.  Nor am I suggesting we all go back to tin cans and string; I've mentioned in the past how I like to see (and use!) modern technology fused with vintage æsthetics but I'd also like to see it married to certain vintage values and a healthy, balanced lifestyle.  Part of that should be the acceptance - the understanding - that mobile telephones are not the be-all and end-all of things and are (and should remain) optional.

Until then, my stock response of "I don't own a mobile telephone" is becoming ever more long-suffering and the numberpad on my keyboard more frequently employed.

Footage shows world's first mobile phone

Footage shows world's first mobile phone

EVE'S WIRELESS

A delightful article here, proving that there truly is "nothing new under the sun". Although I really dislike the pervasiveness and myriad unpleasant aspects of the modern mobile telephone, this historic precedent is wonderful in so many ways that I can't help but admire it. How better things might be today if people had to wrap a wire around a fire hydrant and carry an umbrella as an aerial before they could use their mobiles!