The McBournie Minute: The phone case that will shock you

There was a time, if you can think back that far, where people had to share a phone line. In fact, there were even people with party lines, which was basically sharing a phone number with your neighbor (despite the inherent creepiness, this really did exist). Then came the cellular telephone, and everything changed.

They didn’t really catch on until the phones were made affordable and there were actually networks providing signals, but eventually the ball got rolling. For years, there was a great battle between people who had cell phones, and those who didn’t. Now, if you don’t have one, people assume you’re either a senior citizen or just got mugged.

It’s amazing what phones can do these days, but they’re about to do stuff like follow your eyes.

I got my first cell phone 10 years ago. It has basically a shrunk-down version of a cordless phone, with the rubber numbers making up the lower two-thirds of it, and a square LCD screen on the top part. It didn’t have color. It made calls, sent text messages, and had a couple lame games on it. The good part was that it fit in my pocket and was fairly durable, because I was in college, and that’s where things just take a beating.

Now, we all have smartphones, and they crack if you put then down on any surface harder than a sofa. But that probably won’t last for long, thanks to some of the newest phone features out there. Let’s start off with the violent stuff first.

If you have an iPhone 4, 5 or a Samsung G3 phone, you can now get a case that not only protects your phone, it protects you as well. The Yellow Jacket doubles as a stun gun. At the touch of a button, it can deliver an attacker (or just some guy on the train who fell asleep, your choice) 650,000 volts. And because it’s already in your hand, it’s probably way easier to use at a moment’s notice than to have to rifle through your pocket or purse to get out your stun gun that’s too dumb to make calls. Plus, it’s a great way to make sure you never butt dial someone ever again.

In just a couple weeks, Samsung’s new Galaxy S IV will be unveiled to the world, and apparently it has a feature that allows you to scroll pages with your eyes. This is great news, because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had someone nearly walk into me while tapping something on their phone. Just think, what if those people had one more reason to walk into traffic?

And what would any discussion about silly technology be without mentioning Apple? The rumor mill is all abuzz about a supposed iPhone watch sort of a thing. It’s supposedly going to make calls, do mapping stuff and other hypothetical awesome things, but you just know that the steam punk crowd will make it into a pocket watch somehow.