Fat Fingered Sumo Wrestlers Given iPads 69
The Japan Sumo Association is handing out about 60 iPads to training stables to help the wrestlers communicate because their fingers are too fat to use a regular mobile phone. From the article: "The iPad was chosen because the sumo association believed the device was big enough to cater to wrestler's fat fingers, unlike the smaller keys on mobile phones, according to reports."
Uh... (Score:2)
...pencil?
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Funny)
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Resistive touch screen phones with a stylus have been around for a while now. I hate capacitive because you can't have the precision you need with your fingers as opposed to a stylus.
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Then get a stylus [tenonedesign.com] for your capacitive touchscreen.
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Yes [tenonedesign.com]. Such a thing is old news at this point.
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A Sausage [engadget.com] also works :-)
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http://www.tenonedesign.com/stylus.php [tenonedesign.com]
Oh boy (Score:3, Funny)
Not fat (Score:1)
Making calls on the way out? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure those (usually / always quite horrible, so far) mobile phones for the elderly are also available in Japan...if anybody still wanted to make calls.
You know, those looking a bit like simple alphanumeric calculators, with enormous buttons.
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Old person-san! Do you have trouble using complicated new phone, with small unreadable screen and many tiny buttons that infuriate your fingers? Get Jitabujira today!
iPads are not phones (Score:5, Insightful)
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Only a matter of time until the wrestlers fashion these iPads into ninja stars when they learn of their uselessness.
There, fixed it for ya.
Re:iPads are not phones (Score:4, Insightful)
I keep hearing this "useless" argument. It's a tablet device, it's no desktop replacement.
Have you noticed that time and time again that tablets running a full blown desktop OS have failed to sell? Even Bill Gate's estimates for tablet PC sales were completely wrong and sold a tiny fraction of what was estimated.
An iPad can do word processing, it can play games, it can go on the Internet, it can play music, it can play films, there are utility applications, there are music production applications, there are drawing and photo editing applications.
Useless? what use are you say it lacks?
Sure, if your criteria is a DOS prompt, Bash shell, File manager and so on then yes it is useless. It is stripped down and not the full desktop experience, but who says that File managers are fun or that messing around with config files, registry settings or writing scripts is enjoyable?
There is a lot of needless complexity in computing devices. We are moving on from big dusty boxes filled with cooling fans to small more portable devices. Desktop machines are 10% of the market, laptops are popular and tablets will replace laptops in many mobile computing applications.
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You get the watered down GUIfication element, where anyone can pick it up and it 'just works'
You also get the ability to really dig in via the ADB console or terminal apps.
I'm certainly no majority example, but this seems to me to be 'done right', and I'm excited to buy one for my girlfriend.
Until a good KB dock-type attachment comes out for Android tabs, however, I've got no real use for it - I spend a vast majority of my 'comp
Re:iPads are not phones (Score:4, Informative)
I think what the parent is trying to say that it isn't a "Phone".
Sure you could put Skype or I guess now the new Google service, but strictly speaking it isn't a cell phone.
Why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure you could put Skype or I guess now the new Google service, but strictly speaking it isn't a cell phone.
If I am on a cellular network, talking to another person on a phone, why is what I'm talking on not a phone? If it acts like a phone, I can use it like a phone, and the person on the other end can't tell anything - how is that not a phone?
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Because it lacks the phone parts! It isn't an enlarged iPhone. It is a huge iTouch, it doesn't have the phone hard- or software.
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Unfair (Score:2)
For what it's worth, I thought you had the only valid point and yet someone modded up the other guy!
You deserve that point.
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I keep hearing this "useless" argument. It's a tablet device, it's no desktop replacement.
I used on for the first time yesterday, to do something I thought it would be perfect for: showing my holiday photographs to someone. But the browser (Safari) doesn't cache pages properly! Every time I went to gallery view it had to reload all 400 thumbnails -- annoying and slow on my broadband connection, and presumably terrible on a mobile network...
(For comparison, my HTC Desire had no problems viewing the gallery, it cached all the thumbnails, and worked fine over 3G... in fact, the thumbnails are still
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I think the way you would typically do this on an iPad is to import the pics into your library and show them from the "Photos" app. I find that method extremely fast and easy to use. (*For some people that won't work because you have limited storage.)
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Yep, mobile Safari is lacking in many areas.
I was surprised, since it's such an important part of the device.
I think the way you would typically do this on an iPad is to import the pics into your library and show them from the "Photos" app.
Except they were my photos, and my friend's iPad.
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"The device is hardly useless"
This is true... "use-restricted" would be more accurate.
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Come on Steve....you are not fooling anyone. We know its you.
Why limit your definition? (Score:2)
With Skype, iPads are phones. My wife was able to call me from a hotel room from one after her phone had died. If you have the 3G iPad you could easily make calls from anywhere.
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The sumo wrestlers' reaction (Score:2, Funny)
Ha Ha H... Skype? Oh. (Score:2)
You can make (and receive) calls just fine via Skype, or other voice clients over the 3G network.
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The Fingers you are using to type... (Score:1, Redundant)
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So that's who it is! (Score:1)
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At Sumo scale they should have pockets to accommodate an iPad. I wear carpenter pants and keep my iPhone in the leg pocket, I figure the leg pocket for Sumo size carpenters should have a leg pocket big enough for an iPad.
How do other fat people use phones? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Whaa? How do the millions of other fat people in the world manage to use cell phones?
They have all the local restaurants on speed dial.
.
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The thing is that in Japan you can't talk on the phone onboard most public transport because it is forbidden or impolite but you can send text messages. The predictive text software in the iPad for japanese input method is one of the best implementations around. For sumo wrestlers, sure this would look like a godsend. For them, voice communication will be a nice added bonus, but not a deal breaker.
Little girly hands.. (Score:2)
Their hands aren't "fat" they're just large, I assure you I'm not an obese person but at 6'4" tall and 3' wide at the shoulders my hands are extra large and i wear a size 24 ring.
I cannot use any but the largest buttoned cell phone without a rubber pencil eraser.
The first thing I thought of... (Score:2)
That one commercial where the sumo wrestler uses a voice-activated phone to order pizza.
Did I read that right (Score:2)
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hii (Score:1)