A new mobile phone for the elderly has been announced in Japan by NTT DoCoMo which slows down the callers speech using a “Slow Voice” feature.
On sale in April for 20,000 Yen the phone also includes a “Clear Voice” noise reducing feature which filters out the ambient noise to make the call clearer and adjust the ringtone volume to suit.
Text messages, emails and web pages are read out using an automated voice service as are incoming calls. Thanks to the lack of a camera & MP3 player standby time is 560 hours.
The major problem with this device is likely to be the size of the writing on the keys. Most elderly people who need a phone like this are likely to be intimidated by the small text.
