Reinventing the Telephone: Difference between revisions

* The ESP between Kate and robot Vincent in Disney's ''[[The Black Hole]]''. The novelization clarifies the situation: The exact mechanics of telepathic communication have been discovered in the film's Verse, and Kate has a small computerized implant in her head called an "esplink" that allows her to communicate with Vincent.

* Averted in ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'', where Stark has apparently programmed his armor to act as a cell phone.

** The aversion goes back farther than that: early Iron Man comics showed Stark using a ''rotary phone'' built into the suit.

*** Which is actually a bit of [[Reality Is Unrealistic]] - shortwave-based portable rotary phones such as the Carterphone did exist at the time, and were quite popular in industries where laying out phone lines to remote sites was prohibitively expensive, such as the Texas oil fields.

* Mocked in a sketch from ''That Mitchell and Webb Look''. Ray wanted Colin to tell him some girl's phone number, but Colin insisted on Bluetooth-ing it from one phone to another even though it took way longer and was a massive hassle to get working.

* In the first episode of ''[[Sherlock]]'', {{spoiler|Mycroft Holmes}} contacts Watson by watching him on London's ubiquitous CCTVs and calling every public phone he walks by until he picks one of them up.

 

== Webcomics ==

 

* Also used in ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', with Nanase's '[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-05-02 Fairy Form]': It got lampshaded when it was first used, complete with a "You ''have'' heard of this wonderful invention they call the "Telephone", right?" line, but she's still using it every time she wants to get in touch with someone, and they've pretty much stopped commenting on it. It also pops up in the form of Comm-Watches, courtesy of sterotypical German scientist Dr. Germahn, which are also pointed out to be obsolete by his assistant. He, of course, [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-12-31 replies], "It's not about money -- it's about having cool stuff to play with!"

** Justified for Nanase. The more she uses her powers, the faster she levels up, and learns new powers that might be more useful. Also, the spell provides [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2004-01-20 more] [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2007-03-31 functionality].