Telephone

Fisher Price’s Iconic Toy Telephone Now Actually Makes Phone Calls

Kids can learn the agony of phone tag and conference calls before they can even walk.

Gadgets Andrew Liszewski Oct 19

FCC Wants to Fine a Robocaller $10 Million For Spreading Lies About Politician

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed that a robocall firm pay about $10 million in fines for spamming Californians with lies about a state assembly candidate. An investigation by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau found that Kenneth Moser and a telemarketing operation he runs allegedly made about 47,000 illegal robocalls over the course of two days.…

Tech Policy Jennings Brown Dec 12

Tell Us About Your Last Call From a Phone Booth

Phone booths are disappearing. Kids nowadays don’t even know what it is when they are looking at one. But this booth in Prairie Grove, Arkansas is one of the last remaining specimens of a passing era, and just has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. When’s the last time you’ve used one…

Tech News Attila Nagy Nov 25

Super fun video mixes phone call scenes from movies into one long game of telephone

This is so fun and great that I wish it would never end. Burger Fiction stitched together this super long scene of phone calls from movies so that it looks like different characters from different movies are all talking to each other on the phone, like one never ending game of telephone that breaks the…

Sploid Casey Chan Sep 16

How 911 Became the Emergency Call Number

Before the 1960s, the United States didn’t have one universal phone number for Americans to call if they needed help from the police or fire department. Callers simply had to know the phone number for each department in the area they were currently in. In the case of large cities, there were often multiple police…

Tech News Sarah Stone - TodayIFoundOut.com Jul 7

Barbed Wire Fences Were An Early DIY Telephone Network

Before Ma Bell came to town, and long before DSL, it was barbed wire, of all things, that brought rural communities together. A Sears telephone hooked up to barbed wire—miles of which were already conveniently strung along fences—connected far-flung ranches in the recently settled American west. Thus an ingenious and unregulated telephone system sprung up…

Tech News Sarah Zhang Jan 2

“Pocket Telephones” Made for Cheap Calling All the Way Back in 1910

You’ve almost certainly got a telephone in your pocket (or clutch), but don’t think for a second that it makes you any kind of pioneer. People were predicting—and using—pocket telephones more than a century ago, for reasons every bit as lethargic as your own. A story in the April 30, 1910 Reno Evening Gazette explained…

Tech News Matt Novak Jun 18

22 Awesome Rotary Phones: Beautiful Relics of a Bygone Era

It’s possible that some of you have never seen a rotary phone in real life. It’s likely that many of you have never used a rotary phone: heard the pulse take the place of the tone, mustered your patience as the dial rolls back it its reset, cursed a number with so many zeroes in…

Tech News Attila Nagy Jan 30

Instructions on How to use a Telephone, from 1917

When the telephone was first introduced to households and offices, many of the procedures and courtesies that we take for granted weren’t intuitive. In fact, a lot of newbie phone users experienced stage fright upon picking up the receiver. In order to help people adjust to this radical new technology, the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone…

io9 Lauren Davis Sep 23

Found: The Earliest Known Evidence of a Prank Phone Call

We now know that it took no more than eight years following the invention of the telephone for people to realize the comedic potential of playing practical jokes via landline. Paul Collins, aka “The Literary Detective,” claims to have discovered what he believes to be the first recorded evidence of a prank phone call in…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Nov 3

Why Would Someone Spend $3,000 On 100 Phone Numbers?

Phone numbers are intangible, frivolous things. No one in their right mind would collect them, right? Wrong. Meet Dennis Mykytyn, the man who purchased 100 coveted phone numbers with 212 area codes for $30 a pop in 2007. Yes, this guy spent $3,000 on phone numbers. That might sound crazy, but here’s the deal: Mykytyn…

Tech News Alyssa Bereznak Aug 12

This Is What Happens When You Google “Telephone”

I’m so depressed. I google one of the most important technologies ever invented, and I get a video of 25-year-old wearing sunglasses made out of cigarettes. Two versions of it before Alexander Graham Bell is even mentioned. Try it yourself! Use an incognito window. That’s what I did. This could happen to you, too. To…

Tech News Joe Brown Aug 12

Talking of Tomorrow (1962)

Talking of Tomorrow is a short animated film that was produced for Bell Labs and released in either 1960 or 1962. Directed by Jetsons writer Chuck Couch, the film tells the story of a business executive from the future who works for an “interspace engineering company.” This executive works in a soundproof room attached to…

Tech News Matt Novak Apr 18

Mastering The Lost Art Of Actually Talking On The Phone

Look, we all know the phone is scary. But sometimes you can’t avoid it. Herewith, a few tips for making calls without sounding like a weirdo.… [Jezebel]

Tech News Jezebel Apr 7

Don’t Wanna Memorize Numbers? Call Someone’s Twitter Handle Instead

I have no idea what my mom’s cell phone number is. I don’t think I’ve ever known the phone number of a girlfriend. Why would I? You probably don’t either! Contact lists killed them. But web service Go800 wants to skip the whole number thing entirely, letting you hit people via their Twitter handle to…

Tech News Sam Biddle Mar 4

Face to Face Phone Calls (1957)

In this ad from the March, 1957 issue of Scientific American we see John Q. Businessman making a “face to face” telephone call. The ad declares that thanks to the Hughes Tonotron and other products from the Hughes Aircraft Company people will soon see “on the wall television, electronic control of factory production, and countless…

Tech News Matt Novak Jan 30

Inside AT&T’s National Disaster Recovery Batcave: Who AT&T Calls When the Death Star Explodes

When the World Trade Center collapsed, it took out a critical AT&T switch, crippling service. It was restored in 52 hours—including the time to drive a caravan of eighteen-wheelers from Atlanta to a lot in Jersey City. *** It’s hot, and muggy, like it usually is in Georgia at the end of July. There’s no…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Aug 2

This Is How Google Voice Will Ruin Your Relationships

Long ago, someone wrote about how Google is out to control your dog and marry your wife. I don’t know how right he was about all that, but I certainly know that Google Voice is out to ruin relationships. https://gizmodo.com/google-to-control-your-dog-personal-belongings-marry-329654 You see, reader Pascal wrote us about a recent experience he had with Google Voice’s…

Tech News Rosa Golijan Feb 24

This Is Exactly Why I Don’t Check My Voicemail Anymore

There are times when I let my voicemail fill up to the point of callers getting the “Sorry. Mailbox is full. Please try again.” message. This is why. Click on the image for a closer look. Look, I’ll return missed calls even if you don’t command me to do so, I promise. Unless you’re annoying.…

Books & Comics Rosa Golijan Jan 29

Google’s Placeholder Page for Phone Support and Its Weird Countdown

Google has an odd placeholder page waiting. Based on the URL, it should be a page for phone support, support of a phone, support over a phone, what else? There’s also some sort of weird javascript countdown hidden in the HTML of the page so maybe some kind of mysteries are lurking there. [Google]

Tech News Rosa Golijan Dec 14

Telephone

Fisher Price’s Iconic Toy Telephone Now Actually Makes Phone Calls

FCC Wants to Fine a Robocaller $10 Million For Spreading Lies About Politician

Tell Us About Your Last Call From a Phone Booth

Super fun video mixes phone call scenes from movies into one long game of telephone

How 911 Became the Emergency Call Number

Barbed Wire Fences Were An Early DIY Telephone Network

“Pocket Telephones” Made for Cheap Calling All the Way Back in 1910

22 Awesome Rotary Phones: Beautiful Relics of a Bygone Era

Instructions on How to use a Telephone, from 1917

Found: The Earliest Known Evidence of a Prank Phone Call

Why Would Someone Spend $3,000 On 100 Phone Numbers?

This Is What Happens When You Google “Telephone”

Talking of Tomorrow (1962)

Mastering The Lost Art Of Actually Talking On The Phone

Don’t Wanna Memorize Numbers? Call Someone’s Twitter Handle Instead

Face to Face Phone Calls (1957)

Inside AT&T’s National Disaster Recovery Batcave: Who AT&T Calls When the Death Star Explodes

This Is How Google Voice Will Ruin Your Relationships

This Is Exactly Why I Don’t Check My Voicemail Anymore

Google’s Placeholder Page for Phone Support and Its Weird Countdown

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