Back in the old days, believe it or not, domestic cordless phones were thought to be technically advanced, allowing one to receive calls at the far end of the garden (?) Anyway, one advantage which they did provide (apart from no longer having to resist the homing instinct of the springloaded handset cable) was that they had an extensible aerial.
To make or take a call, you had to pull out a half a metre of shiny telescopic metal above your head. The benefit this provided was that everyone could see you were on the phone and give you a wide berth for a while. More recently, with the tendency to use ever smaller phones, it’s quite possible to walk up to someone who is listening on an undetectable phone and attempt to engage them in a second conversation…only to be faced with a great deal of frowning and animated gesturing to the effect that one should ‘go away’.
Today’s invention to to equip all phones with an ‘aerial’ which has no electromagnetic function whatever. It could be made in the form of a thin version of a metal tape measure. The tape housing could be attached to the phone body and when the phone is in use, the ‘tape’ would be extended, carrying a small pennant on the end for extra visibility.
This would be greatly preferable to a simple flickering ‘busy’ light on the phone and, if one cared more for ‘cool’ than ‘green’ the aerial could be pushed up by a small motor when the phone became active.
Printable pennant inserts would be made downloadable, bearing ‘clever’ daily mottos. I actually think that a small LED on the end would help to enhance phone sales significantly (and reduce any possibility of eye injuries).
