Hmm…missed this the first time round, but it’s actually quite interesting. Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter has just launched the world’s first ‘newspaper phone’, which is basically a Nokia 6120 with a dedicated button that takes you directly to the newspaper’s content. It’s a clever bit of convergence, and just one example of the way the future could go once digital e-readers become more common, or mobile phones start to employ in-built projection technology. Sponsored hardware, special prices for subscribers, lock-ins to make sure you read their content first. It’s all there waiting.
“We want our readers to be able to follow the news even when they’re in places where they cannot lay their hands on a paper or (access the internet on) a computer. This is yet another way of distributing news,” Thorbjoern Larsson, editor-in-chief and publisher of the DN, told AFP.
The phone can be bought through the paper’s website and includes a 199 kroner-a-month (around £20) call plan for those who sign up. According to Larsson, demand for the device has been so strong that the paper’s switchboard became jammed following its launch on Wednesday.