Cell phone makers aim to refine specifications for greater simplicity

Eager to maximise your time, improve efficiency and lighten your roaming work load? Imagine having a speaker implanted in your thumb or ear, or a microphone imbedded in your pinky finger or lower lip as a tool for mobile communications.

If cellular phone makers Nokia and Philips are to be believed, cellular technology implanted in body parts for 'user convenience' may well be a part of everyday life within the next decade.

User convenience is the key here. After all, a cell phone in a tooth may be small, but how on earth do you dial a number? Philips believes it has the answer with its Genie mobile phone. Voice activated, this phone can dial a pre-programmed number at the mention of the party's name. This phone, while being the lightest in the world, is still a hand-held device.

'While technology use is limited only by the imagination, you have to give users something that is ergonomically friendly to use,' Philips Consumer Electronics Greater China general manager Christian Gylstorff said.

Nigel Rundstrom, director of product marketing for Nokia Asia Pacific, agrees. While Nokia already has a prototype of a cellular phone the size of a fountain pen, Mr Rundstrom said such technology would be useful only if it was convenient to use.

For Nokia, the near future involves focusing connecting notebook and hand-held computing devices using wireless voice and data technology.