Slashdot Mirror
Short Text Messages In Mid-Air
bahree writes "The BBC is running an interesting story on how Nokia is making a mobile that lets you write short text messages in mid-air. The messages are written using a row of LEDs fitted on the rear cover of Nokia's forthcoming 3220 phone. A motion sensor in the phone makes the lights blink in a sequence that spells out letters when the handset is waved in the air."
OK, the social engineering that is going on here is getting out of control. It's bad enough that you have someone talking on their phones in the elevator/restaurant/movie theatre or on the subway behind you about all sorts of things (many of which are quite personal), but now we are going to get people gesticulating madly, waving their arms back and forth to send messages.
Lets have some real innovation, yes? Rather than fun and games with LEDs, what I would like to see some real innovation in in terms of interaction with cell phones much like iChatAV (prevents having to remember phone numbers etc...), whereby you could call someone wherever they may be over TCP/IP or have servers automatically negotiate phone calls through traditional land lines if the receiver of the call is not available on the iChatAV equivalent. It could be relatively easy to establish a hierarchy of places to contact a person starting with VOIP, then progressing on down to sending a voice to text message at the very last.
Right now at least, we do have phones (V600) that will automatically negotiate networks (so I can have one phone to travel with internationally rather than having to keep two or three depending upon the networks), but most of these phones have maddening interfaces and that in of itself could use some thought and effort. Look, placing GUI interfaces on lots of stuff is OK if it streamlines your operation of the device, but the phone companies and even automobile manufacturers are using lousy GUI interfaces to perform simple tasks. (I absolutely refuse to consider the new BMW's because of that stupid GUI that has to be navigated through three screens to change the radio station or move the seat or change the temperature.
Sorry for the rant.
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Just look at all the ugly ascii art we see from the ./ trolls.
Now imagine some retarded 15 year old high school loser waving an animated picture in the air in front of you.
ahhh... this is what happens when your R&D dept. can't keep up with the marketing dept...
gimmiks for the kiddies...
It's annoying enough having people using cell phones for normal sms messages in movie theatres...imagine the waving of phones in movie theatres that will happen now...of course if the message happened to be a target...
How stupid is this. Just open your mouth and talk the the person you can fricken see. Rediculous. I am sure there will be a plethora of posts about how someway this could be integrated with Linux or a beowulf cluster by a loser sitting at home living with his parents, compiling the latest kernel.
It's bad enough being surrounded by bouncing people and seizure inducing light shows with out some jackass waving their blinking cell phone at me to play some song I have no intention of playing anyway.
If you are one in a million, then there are six thousand people who are just like you.
I can see two positive things happening with this technology:
1. People using this who accidentally hit people in the process will be sued, prompting them to stop using it.
2. People using this may develop carpal tunnel or dislocations, prompting them to stop using it.
Enough's enough. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should - someone throw the engineer that came up with this off a cliff!
So far, this is the best use anyone has proposed for this feature, and it is better accomplished with a 50-cent pen and a bar-napkin.
I mean, this is just amazing! A system that lets you send messages by waving your arms!
Maybe in a few more years they'll invent a system which lets you send a message by entering just dots and dashes.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
I was thinking of using it to tell the car beside me that their 'gas cap is open', or to 'check trailer' when the load becomes untied, etc. I can see this as a real hit for the public transport crowd, especially on trains or subway systems.
Well, eventually it'll weed out all the bad drivers who like to use their cell phones while driving. Take your example where Driver A cuts off Driver B:
Driver A: (taps onto phone) YOU CUT ME OFF
Then waves phone, then (clears existing message and taps onto phone) YOU MOTHER (screams) AHHH! Truck Tire in the middle of the road! [...] (Crash).
Driver B: (taps into phone, then waves arms) HA HA HA HA
$cat
As much as this feature seems annoying to most people reading slashdot, it might actually come in handy in certain situations:
That said, this is obviously only going to work in certain situations, namely dark rooms or at night, but what I find interesting is the fact it will be VERY easy and obvious for someone to pick you out of a crowd of people when your waving this around. Imagine emergency situations where it might be difficult to discribe your exact location and someone that is despirately trying to find you (At a concert, park, out lost in the wilderness etc), or even something as simple as alerting someone driving around trying to find you (and have never meet you before perhaps?), you could easily attract their attention, plus include a message they understand.
Now, granted 99% of the time it's going to be completely useless, but for the fact that the other 1% of the time this allows you to communicate more effectively, I think it's really not a bad idea.
I would also like to point out that the average slashdot reader should have no problems waving the phone around for extended periods of time (granted they use their right hand).
Pretty much every comment has been disparaging... like "oooh... what do we need this for?"
I can think of one case where it would be useful: hearing impaired individuals.... Imagine trying to shout across a a street or something to a deaf friend.. not going to work. but if you could wave and message them, then it allows communication over "earshot" distances easier.