Smarter Phones Coming Soon

cofaboy writes "Down at Vulture Central there's an article regarding the next generation of smart phones. These things will learn to nag you if you try drinking too much the night before, learn who your friends are via bluetooth and more. "

Comments

Information is dangerous :)

[Gopal.V]

I wouldn't want these logs (plus a location chart) to fall into the wrong hands :)

Privacy is a concern the second you send it to a server ....

Re:Information is dangerous :)

[Enix]

The scary part is that you might not know when you're being 'tracked'... Say one of your friends gets the phone but you don't know it's a smarty-pants phone. If they hang around with you a lot of the time suddenly They know where you are.

I just find it strange that in time of security paranoia we still seem to broadcast so much information about ourselves without thinking about it. For example, I bought a set of headphones the other day and was asked my phone number and post code (zip code). Now why do they need to know that?

One more privacy breach

[bugbeak]

That's one more potential privacy breach. Why do we even bother with that term anymore?

not buying one

[TLouden]

seriously, i've got enought trouble when my family does that stuff, so why whould a buy a phone that is better at doing it?

Interesting but

[roxtar]

Is it the smart phone which is predicting the owner's behaviour? According to the article it seems that the smart phone just acts as an intermediary which sends data to a server for processing. So actually the real smart stuff is being done at a server by some other program rather than by the phone itself.

Re:And Hopefully tell you someone cute goes by

[Anonymous Coward]

These things will learn to nag you if you try drinking too much the night before, learn who your friends are via bluetooth and more. "

Hell, with all that, if it can give you a blowjob too, who needs a girlfriend?

Automatic social network (that does not work)

[asb]

If their system relies on plain bluetooth identification it crumbles down as soon as the first person buys a new phone.

This could be fixed with additional software, but it would seriously limit the user base. And what good would it be then?

And it would also require that people keep bluetooth always on. Good bye battery life. Welcome bluetooth worms.

Nice idea, though.

I don't want an all-in-1 device

[kbrannen]

The New Scientist reports possible applications include reminding you not to drink too much the night before an important presentation. Some people might balk as the idea of being monitored - and nagged - by their personal technology. But US scientists reckon they've hit on a winner.

Bzzzz, wrong! This is not a winner. My cell phone is used to call people and for them them to call me. It is not a PDA, that is a separate device. It's also not a web browser, a camera, nor a music player. These devices are separate for a reason: so I can use them all only when I want, so I can upgrade them when I feel like, and if one of them breaks (or gets lost) then they are not all gone. Also, I can buy the individual devices much more easily because I'd buy only 1 a month, rather than having to buy the very expensive all-in-1 device; and who says they'll even have all the right features anyway?

So this causes me to need a little more pocket space or belt space to carry multiple devices. That's OK, I rarely have more than 2 of them with me at once anyway.

Re:Nah...

[Trillan]

It's funny. I only know three people who turn predictive text off, and two of them type in foreign languages for which prediction is not available. The third has had a cell phone since texting was available.

I think it's a lot like anything else. The good ideas don't actually win people over, it's just that the people stuck on the old ideas die out sooner or later and aren't replaced.

Re:Nah...

[KronicD]

I use preditive text, it's alot faster for me, the casual SMS user. For those excessive types that never stop sending text messages it is probly slower. However for those who look at the keys etc, it is alot faster.

As for filtering calls, my current nokia can do that (6610), by setting different caller groups with different ringtones (or no ringtones).

Re:Nah...

[Urkki]

• Predictive texting is crap (everyone I know turns it off) so I can't see this being much better. Now a *really* smart phone would recognise telemarketing calls and refuse to ring, or just play a recorded message telling them you're dead.

In my experience, those who think predictive input are either

a) SMS addicts who type 20cps the old way with closed eyes and have repetitive stress injury in their thumbs

b) too dumb to learn the new way well enough to make it faster than the old way, or even too dumb to understand it at all (it *is* more complex, there's no denying that)

c) too stubborn to accept that the new way is better, just in principle

d) to lazy to spend a bit more time (not to mention brain activity!) writing next 10 messages, even though they'd more than make the time back during their next 100 messages

But trust me, if you write any number of messages, learning the new way is worth it.

Re:Nah...

[martyn s]

Predictive text is great it works really well, you just have to know how to add words to the dictionary and know how to cycle through words. For example, if you typed G-A-M-E you have to know how to cycle through the available words to get the word "game" if your phone thinks you want the word "hand". Predictive text is great unless you don't know how to use it.

ugh.

[ErikZ]

I don't want more features, I want to be able to afford it!

The latest Sony Ericson phone is something I'd love to have. I'd also love to have a laptop, and it costs about the same.