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<\/p>Oh oh Cybiko! Presumably born of an illicit union between a walkie-talkie and a Palm Pilot, this 2000-era gadget was for kids who wanted to send messages to nearby friends. But could it also make men erect and cows flatulent?<\/p>
The Cybiko, which was introduced in 2000, was an antenna'd handheld gadget could send messages via radio waves to other device-users within a 300-meter radius. Ha ha ha: Why would anyone want to send a non-verbal message to someone so darn close to them? That would be, like, IM-ing someone who sat near me in an office. Ridiculous. I almost never do that. Twice a day, tops.<\/p>
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In the UK and the US, the Cybiko was marketed as a kind of Baby's First PDA: In addition to using it to chat with nearby friends, it could be used to play games or as a calculator and to have what promised to be an uncontrollable amount of fun. It seems that in Asia, however, the market was slightly older. Japanese users were promised a little bit more than just fun: Namely, the ability to make cows fart out words, pop hands out of men's heart boxers, and, overall, have yourself a \"happy best time.\" <\/p>
Anna Jane Grossman has joined us for a few weeks, documenting life in the early aughts, and how it differs from today. The author of Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By (Abrams Image)<\/a> and the creator of ObsoleteTheBook.com<\/a>, she has also written for dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Salon.com, the Associated Press, Elle and the Huffington Post, as well as Gizmodo. She has a complicated relationship with technology, but she does have an eponymous website: AnnaJane.net<\/a>. Follow her on Twitter at @AnnaJane<\/a>.<\/i><\/p> Oh oh Cybiko! Presumably born of an illicit union between a walkie-talkie and a Palm Pilot, this 2000-era gadget was for kids who wanted to send messages to nearby friends. But could it also make men erect and cows flatulent?The … Continue reading <\/a>
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