Phonebloks is about to design a smartphone that will last for ever. It is a smartphone idea which seeks to cater the problem of global electronic waste (e-waste). Dave Hakkens came up with this idea which has been widely endorsed by celebrities and many other important people.
It offers users the opportunity to
upgrade parts or in other words bloks instead of replacing the whole phone.
Phones where not designed to last for long, like every other device, they usually get
old and become worn out. If one of the components is broken, we usually change
the entire phone. Then there are times
when your phone is outdated and you just need to get a new phone to keep up
with the changing trend. So where do the old phones go? They add up to the
electronic waste. Just like HakKens said
"I don't like the direction
electronics are heading. They get more disposable and get a shorter life with
every model. This gives a lot of e-waste."
It has
been estimated by Greenpeace that global e-waste amounts to between 20 and 50 million tons a year. Put into
perspective, they say that quantity of waste, loaded onto container trains,
would stretch all the way around the world.
Hakken
says "The idea is to set up a platform which, if used correctly, can
reduce the amount of waste significantly,"
The idea of the phone is
to replace the components that are affected by replacing detachable bloks when
a component fails to work while
retaining the device's basic frame. Perhaps your screen is damaged, or
wifi, Bluetooth stops working or needs to be upgraded you just change the blok
with a new blok.
At the
moment, Phonebloks is not yet even in the development stage. Hakkens is taking
his time to build an online support for the concept using the
"crowd-speaking" platform called
Thunderclap.
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