Software Holds Cell Phone Calls While Driving

An anonymous reader writes "Canadian company Aegis Mobility has developed software that detects if a cell phone is moving at 'car' speeds. If so, the software, DriveAssistT, will alert the cellular network, telling it to hold calls and text messages until the drive is over. Calls are not blocked entirely; callers will be notified that the person appears to be driving, but they can still leave an emergency voice mail, which will be sent through immediately."

Comments

This is different from the OFF button how?

[kpainter]

Seems like exactly the same as turning the phone off. I smell a patent!

Re:This is different from the OFF button how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm ... What is my gf is on the phone while I am driving ...

Re:This is different from the OFF button how?

[BitZtream]

People who freak out because some doesn't answer their cell phone instantly have deeper issues that aren't going to be solved by an automated message from a machine.

In reality they need to seek professional help for their disorder, or at the very least remind them that our species survived just fine 15 years ago before everyone had cell phones.

I have inlaws like this, it's taken me several years of aggressivly not answering them to just get them to recognize that not answering the phone doesn't imply anything other than you didn't answer the phone.

This is brilliant

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody rides a train at car speeds, am I right?

Don't worry.

[Ironchew]

The "I'm in the back of an unmarked white van" patch has already been released.

Some facts

[eightball]

From here

Key Features:
Automatic initiation of service
Passenger override capability
911 always allowed
Inbound caller message is played that the subscriber is driving
Inbound caller is routed to voicemail and text messages are stored and forwarded later
Outbound calls and text messages are disallowed
Priority notification is supported as an option
Location requests are optional, when permission is granted by the subscriber
Accept list of numbers assures user control over privacy of context information

but don't let that get into your 2 minutes of hate.

Re:Well this is stupid if you don't RTFA

[jamesh]

what's to stop me from turning it off AS THE DRIVER also?

That's a bit of an uninformed conclusion. Just because you can imagine a bunch of cases where such a feature is not a good idea, doesn't mean that there aren't cases where it would solve a lot of problems. If your job involved lots of short drives between destinations then it could be really useful. As soon as you start moving your phone won't interrupt you, as soon as you stop it lets you know about the calls you missed, and in the meantime it let the people trying to contact you know what's going on.

If you took your blinkers off you might realize that this is a feature that will be useful for some people, who will purchase it, and not so much for others, who won't purchase it. It's not a hard thing to get your hear around if you try. Nobodies going to purchase it and then try and figure out a way of defeating it.

If Slashdot was a crowded room, and someone were to come into the room and ask "Who owns the red car parked out the front", the answer "oh yeah, that's mine" would be lost amongst the noise of everyone else replying "It's not mine. I can't imagine why you'd think it was mine. How dare you suggest that I left a red car parked out the front".

... right.

[Almahtar]

This is slashdot. You don't have a girlfriend.