PerhApps, perhApps, perhApps

Ear recognition and wrist-worn devices are just two of the eight potential developments in the cellphone market identified in Javier Martín’s article in El País last week about Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress. There are, however, eight other innovative functions and applications that it would be nice to see by the time the city hosts the event in exactly twelve months time, from 2-5 March, 2015. The following list is intended for the benefit of everyone, whether you love or hate, are addicted to or irritated by, your essential communication companion. Of course, as research and development is always top secret, the legitimacy of the information cannot be guaranteed:

InvisiBar This is a service whereby high-tech voice recognition doesn’t permit the user to make a call if he or she is drunk. Market testing suggests that the application has already saved several relationships and prevented hundreds of calls to ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends. A ‘mildly tipsy’ state can be detected, which allows the call to proceed and has the additional attraction of eliminating background noise such as music, social conversation and the clinking of glasses. Auto-correction is carried out for comments like ‘Hi darling. I’m lust jeaving the office, it’s been a dong lay.’

KittyKill Let’s face it, just about everyone is addicted to circulating photos and videos of their cute cat or kitten. Enough is enough, so this proposed facility would automatically delete any message with that content, ideally when the originator presses the 'upload' or 'send' button. Exemptions are being considered if your feline friend can really achieve something unusual, such as unicycling along a curtain rail or playing a ukulele.
"Oh no! Not another cute kitty!"  Photo flickr (CC): L'oeil étranger

2dull Even though your friends and family may not realise it, information about many of their daily activities are often of no interest to you whatsoever – ‘I’m having a cup of coffee’ and ‘Have arrived at the office’ being two prime examples. The 2dull function identifies a pointless message and eliminates it, making sure it never reaches you at all. It would also rule out the worst culprit, ‘What are you doing?’, which craftily feigns interest in you but, in fact, only originates because the sender is completely bored.

Dead-SeeScrolling An option that should be included on all models to assist in breaking the habit of users scrolling their cellphones solely for want of something better to do. If that situation is identified, the function prompts the cellphone to automatically emit, very loudly, the first four lines of ‘Help’ by The Beatles. Embarrassing for the user, but hugely entertaining for everyone else, especially fellow passengers on public transport.

Coooo!!! Still very much in the development phase, this idea incorporates genes from homing pigeons. As a cellphone owner, a small transmitter would be implanted under a your skin, and activate a homing signal automatically if you stray too far from your device. After the activation, the cellphone picks up the signal, sprouts wings, and flies after you.

Coooo!!! An early prototype?

Voice-Over Amazing new developments could give sensitive electrodes in a cellphone the potential to identify if using the device is causing anger, irritation and discomfort to people within earshot. Detection would result in a call being cut off automatically, for example if the user is speaking loudly in public places. Call termination is particularly quick if a conversation veers towards the medical history or recent surgical operations of the user’s family.

MoleculArrive May not be available in the near future, but this teleportation application (think ‘Star Trek’) involves setting coordinates that will actually allow your cellphone to ‘beam’ you from point A to point B. Designated as a ‘wearable’ because at present the amount of power required means that the batteries have to be concealed under a hat the size of a large sofa.

U.R.ME The pièce de résistance for cellphone designers. Your cellphone carries out a life analysis by accessing your phone conversations, messages and diary. It will then answer your calls, accept or decline invitations, and organise your entire existence, telling you when to wake up, get dressed, visit the bathroom, eat, work, party or sleep. The cellphone must be plugged in to the back of your head at all times. However, unresolved teething troubles in the testing process have included low batteries, which have resulted in the users having breakfast at nine o’clock at night, bedwetting, and going out naked.

Only time will tell if any of the above come to fruition, but remember that today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact, and for cellphone technology, there’s always a gApp in the market.

Comments

[Publicado por: vidmate]

It will then answer your calls, accept or decline invitations, and organise your entire existence, telling you when to wake up, get dressed, visit the bathroom, eat, work, party or sleep.