“Imagine walking to a crosswalk and doing the “halt” hand motion in the direction of traffic. Your ring and your watch can tell by their orientation to each other that you have formed that gesture and so they send a “pedestrian waiting” message to the street light. The lights change for you and you cross. It will feel like magic. Or point at something in a vending machine and your watch and ring can detect which item you selected, charge your credit card, and send a code to release the item. To an observer it will seem that you pointed at an item and magic released it.”
Tag Archives: app-idea
Mouth Buffer
I suffer from “fast mouth.” Someone will say or do something and before my mind can engage, I blurt out some smart-ass or unkind remark. Seconds later, my brain catches up and I spend some time regretting my (literally) thoughtless comment. Here’s my fantasy fix for this condition:
A small, neural implant in my brain with a tiny switch just behind my right ear (I’m right handed). When going into situations where I think I might speak before thinking, I can engage the Mouth Buffer. While my mental and physical reaction times are unaffected, there is a three second delay before I can utter a sound. (This can be changed in Preferences)
By default, the Mouth Buffer stays engaged for one hour but can be reset as needed.
The only down side I see is the possibility some strangers will be crushed by falling pianos or hiking buddies killed by poisonous snakes because I couldn’t warn them.
Talk-o-Meter
In May, 2010, I imagined an iPhone app I called the Blab-o-Meter. It only took a year for someone to pick up on the idea. They call it the Talk-o-Meter
“Some people don’t realize when they dominate others in a discussion. Make sure each of two participants get the same talk time with this App! After a brief calibration of both voices, the App recognizes who’s speaking and keeps track of the speaker’s talk time. The result is displayed as colored percent bars. The screen update can be set to one, two or five minute intervals.”
If you can find an earlier reference to this idea, let me know. I suspect The Coffee Zone is too noisy for the app but I’ll give it a try.
Scott Adams: The “I Wonder” App
“You’ll be wearing your Bluetooth earpiece – a future version of it – most of the day. And it will be listening to everything you say. When it hears you say, “I wonder…” it will fire up a search engine and wait for the rest of the sentence. The software will know you’re using an earpiece, so the answer will be delivered as a brief verbal summary, like a smart friend whispering in your ear.
In the first versions of this service, you’ll ask simple questions, such as “I wonder what ingredients go into a margarita,” or “I wonder where the nearest Starbucks is.” In later versions, as search engines and content sources evolve, you’ll have access to more complicated answers, all with whisper-friendly brevity.
Now imagine that your earpiece has a camera. Google is already working on a search engine that will identify an object from a digital image. Someday you will be able to look at a flower and say, “I wonder what type of flower that is,” and the answer will be whispered in your ear.
Now here’s the cool-spooky part. As the technology improves, the voice in your ear will become more natural, and smarter, and it will be like your invisible friend. It will learn your preferences in a way no human ever has. I think it will be able to keep you company and make you less lonely. The whisper-in-your-ear aspect of this technology has the potential to feel like human contact but without the inconvenience of an actual human.”
The Better Person plug-in
Imagine an email plug-in that scans what you have written and then runs it through a “tone” algorithm. “Neutral,” “Friendly,” “Sympathetic,” “Encouraging,” etc. If your words and phrasing do not match the tone you’ve selected, the plug-in rewrites accordingly. If unable to do so, it asks you do re-word the message.
It could know something about the recipient, based on previous emails, text messages, and voice-to-text phone messages (i.e. Google Voice)
If such a plug-in existed, it could eliminate misunderstandings. It could make you seem like a nicer person.
Would you use it?
Blab-o-meter
From my “Apps I’d Like to See” folder. Begin by letting Blab-o-meter sample your voice by recording a short paragraph. The audio is analyzed up in the cloud and sent back to your device.
As you and a friend settle in at your local coffee shop, you turn on Blab-o-meter and it begins monitoring how much you are talking. You can set the app to alert you by vibrating and or playing a sound (a throat clearing; “shhhhh!” etc) when you exceed some predetermined level. 50 percent might be reasonable or, if you’re trying to listen more, set it lower.
I spend a couple of hours in a coffee shop, six days a week. Usually by myself. I’m usually absorbed in what I’m reading or doing but I sometimes become aware of how much some people dominate a conversation (if you can even call it a conversation when one person is talking continuously and the other person doesn’t say a word. I’m being literal, here).
Let me hasten to add, this might be a very acceptable arrangement for both parties. One likes to talk, one likes to listen.
Until the Blab-o-meter becomes a reality, I’d like to ask my friends and acquaintences to give me some sort of visual cue when I start running off at the mouth. Perhaps two quick tugs of your earlobe (repeated as needed). Or, you might simply reference this post, “Hey, I thought your Blab-o-meter app was a great idea!”
Scott Adams: Future of your phone
This post by Scott Adams illustrates why I think owning a smart phone is important. He makes some predictions about future applications:
WHATS-HIS-FACE: This application would let you discreetly take an iPhone photo of an acquaintance whose name you can’t remember then it uses face recognition to search for the name online. Someday everyone will have a Facebook-like web page, so searching for faces will be feasible.
DOCTOR-IN-A-BOX: Someday you’ll be able to take an iPhone picture of your suspicious moles, abrasions, fungus, or whatever and get an instant automated diagnosis and suggested treatment.
WHAT’S-IT-LIKE-THERE? Imagine wondering how long the line is to an event, or what a particular forest fire looks like, for example. You send a query through your iPhone for anyone who is in that area, according to GPS tracking, and ask for a look. A kind stranger takes your query, sets his phone to stream video, and gives you the view from his perspective. You would have eyes anywhere there are people.
BRAIN-EXTENDER: Google and Wikipedia are already brain extenders. You can find almost any information you want and quickly. But imagine how much cooler it would be if your iPhone headset was continuously monitoring your conversations and answering your questions as they arise, or whispering suggestions in your ear. That application seems likely to me.
Before dismissing these, think about how unlikely it would have sounded if someone had told you it was possible to have have your phone “listen” to a song and tell you the name and artist.
As I get more familiar with the iPhone, I find myself thinking more about my use of –and relationship with– The Web. More and more of my time is spent in “the cloud.” Typepad, Gmail, Flickr, YouTube. My laptop, desktop and phone have become a means to “get to” and interact with my stuff out there.
The iPhone makes you aware of how much time you were not connected. Even with the MacBook at my side.
I overheard some of the regulars at the Towne Grill trying to come up with the name of some actor in a TV show. I couldn’t remember either but looked down at the iPhone and thought how easy it would be to google the answer. But that wouldn’t have been in the spirit of the discussion.
Putting aside the warnings of the The Matrix, Terminator and countless other movies and books… I find myself thinking of the web as one big old computer that we all use. And when it becomes smarter than we are (and self-aware) I want to be connected. All the time.