Polite Cell Phones

yEvb0 writes "Researchers at Motorola and Carnegie Mellon University are developing more polite cell phones. Strategies include programming the ringer to turn on and off according to the time of day, monitoring sound light levels to determine if the owner is a movie theater or talking to his boss, and even letting callers decide whether they'd like to interrupt based on this information."

Comments

It's Called 'Vibrate'

[eldavojohn]

Set your phone to vibrate. It's been working for me for years. Non-invasive when doing anything in my daily routine.

Is there really a reason I should have to enter my schedule into my phone? Because it's not going to happen.

Re:It's Called 'Vibrate'

[LinuxHam]

Not to mention something Nextel has had for years. If I put my regularly scheduled meetings in my datebook, I can program the phone to switch to vibrate on its own, shut off the two-way radio feature, and even decide who in my phonebook is allowed to ring through, just for the length of the meeting. Its really an excellent feature, and I love it.

Re:It's Called 'Vibrate'

[voice_of_all_reason]

At church, during a quiet time, a hip-worn cell vibrating against a Wooden Pew makes a lot of noise...

Well, I mean... they already have the crosses and nails there, right? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Re:It's Called 'Vibrate'

[paeanblack]

Vibrate is not always the best option:

When a cell phone on vibrate is going to be too distracting to others, THEN TURN IT OFF!

You have two options:

1) Accept that cell-phone use in certain situations is inappropriate and don't use them.
2) Don't put yourself in those situations.

You used church as your example. Why are you there? To talk to God? (sorry, God, I need to take this call...wtf?) Or are you there just to be seen? (yeah, I'm here to look good, but I'm going to be an ass and disrupt the service dealing with my phone...wtf??)

Seriously, if your cellphone going ringy-dingy is more important than the service you are attending, why are you there?

once again, trying to get machines to "think"

[acroyear]

since people obviously don't anymore...

They should research

[endrue]

a polite human being.
Seriously folks! How hard is it to turn off the ringer? Are we so daft these days that our phones have to be polite for us?

But...

[gEvil (beta)]

But can it tell the difference between a movie theater and my pocket?

How about human politeness

[binaryDigit]

It seems to me that most of the "rudeness" of phones stems from peoples strange addictions to ringtones. I just leave my phone on silent/vibrate all the time, and just never worry about disturbing anyone. It's sad that so much energy has to be expended to deal with such an issue. Plus, many of those strategies sound iffy at best since, for instance, many women keep their cell phones in their purse/bag, rendering any attempt to guage light or sound pretty much useless. Plus, as far as sound is concerned, how many people are going to feel a bit disturbed by the fact that their phone is now ALWAYS "listening".

That being said I see two useful features (which may have been mentioned in the article that I admit I haven't read). One, simply have the phone check your calendar to see if you have a meeting scheduled. Two, provide some type of "snooze" button. Right now, if you decline a call because you're in a meeting, you still get an annoying beep when they leave a message, or the same damn "ringing" 10 min later when they call again. Why not have a single button basically put the phone in silent mode for the next half/hour/n minutes?

Why can't the movie theatre _tell_ the phone

[wfmcwalter]

Rather than guessing we're in a movie theatre (which is what this amounts to) or places using cell-phone blockers, why can't someone implement a simple scheme to _tell_ the phone not to ring?

Of those phones which do ring in an inappropriate place, the owners of the great majority have simply forgotten to turn their phone off (they're forgetful, not sociopathic). Movie theatres, concert halls, libraries and other please-keep-quiet places could have short-range radio equipment inside which sent a "this is a quiet zone" signal. You'd program your phone (and it would come programmed by default) that when it was receiving that signal it would go onto the vibrate-only ring preference. When the signal was lost, it would revert to your default. So when you entered, and when you left, there would be no need to remember to set the phone correctly (the nagging ads always remind me to turn my phone off, but very often I forget at the end and leave my phone off for the remainder of the day). Similarly noisy places like train stations and airport concourses could broadcast a "this is a noisy environment", which your phone would typically interpret to mean that it should use a loud, shrill ringtone.

There >are Phones should, incidentally, have an "answer with hold" button. So a doctor in the movies whose phone rang (silently) could take it out, notice that it's the hospital's number, and push "answer with hold". The caller would get a short recorded message saying "this person is aware of your call, and will be with you shortly - please hold" - that way the doctor can take the call, but doesn't have to talk into the phone until they've walked into the theatre lobby, where they can take the phone off hold and talk.

Re:Inside my pocket

[meringuoid]

It's dark and there is the sound of rattling change.

What? Grues use currency these days, do they?