While wandering around the "International" wing of this year's CES, we stumbled upon a number of questionable (and familiar) items. One line of products that stood out, however, was a company offering a modular solution for adding GSM capability to a wide variety of devices. Using what appears to be a proprietary type of connector, the SIM-ready card can imbue an assortment of gadgets (phone, e-book reader, GPS... teddy bear) with GSM functionality. It's unclear whether this technology is being deployed overseas (or at all), and whether or not we'll see it Stateside (doubtful), but it does take a novel approach to cell-ing up your gear.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Fernando @ Jan 11th 2008 5:29PM
gsm teddy bear? sign me up!
Victor @ Jan 11th 2008 5:41PM
How is this novel? You guys are idiots (like making fun of McIntosh in another post). GSM and CDMA modules have been around since the 90s!
Jason @ Jan 11th 2008 5:59PM
name one consumer device in the US that uses one?
Victor @ Jan 11th 2008 6:20PM
Off the top of my head, I can think of Onstar, smart vending machines, laptops, wireless credit card systems, some of the original Pocket PC phones. They all used modules as opposed integrated radio/baseband/antenna systems. How do I know? I used to work for a company that made modules.
Paul @ Jan 11th 2008 9:48PM
Yep. A common example is the Siemens line of GPRS and EDGE units (MC35, MC55/56) but there are lots more.
Shane @ Jan 11th 2008 5:51PM
Sounds very similar to the Japanese Willcom W-SIM...
David Pilcher @ Jan 11th 2008 6:32PM
Please give us a clue who this company is!
This is an interesting device...
Nate the great @ Jan 11th 2008 7:58PM
The company is Group Sense Limited.
https://myces.bdmetrics.com/Portal/ViewCompany.aspx?id=4101182
http://www.gsl.com.hk/eng/index.asp
Ricardo @ Jan 11th 2008 6:37PM
iTeddy?
Paul @ Jan 11th 2008 6:39PM
haha so I can use the teddy bear as my gsm phone?
masamic @ Jan 12th 2008 1:46AM
It's looks like W-SIM module.
W-SIM -> http://www.wcmf.jp/wsim/index.html (Japanese)
maryland157 @ Jan 12th 2008 11:37AM
Hey lets shove this up a Teddy Bears A$$!