I hate my phone. At the beginning of this year, I had a perfectly functional phone, but the front screen was broken, so to check the time, I had to open the phone. So my friend switched providers and gave me his phone, a Motorola RAZR. It refuses to read my sim card for about 60% of the day. But let's say this phone still works and can make calls. Here are a few problems that I encounter on a daily basis.
Phones go off during lecture. It happens. Some people just forget to switch their phones to vibrate or silent before class begins. Personally, when I am in class, I like to switch my phone to vibrate. That way, when I get a call, I won't answer it, but I know I received a call and can check it later. When I'm not in class, I switch my phone to vibrate and ring, mainly because I like my ringtones, but also because I might be charging my phone or won't be in proximity to the phone.
Another problem I encounter is accessibility to my text messages. Since my phone doesn't work sometimes, I don't want to miss important text messages. This problem is not unique to me, as I'm sure many people have had their phone battery die sometime during the day without having a charger handy.
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There are a few fixes I would make to fix the phone in class problem. Most phones come with a calendar or schedule application. One could enter in the classes into the schedule, classify the classes as "Silent," and have the phone automatically silence itself whenever the user is in class. Another option would be to have a sensor to sense what is a classroom based on noise level and topic of discussion among students as well as the professor as picked up from the phone's microphone.
Although some people have Windows Mobile Operation System on their phones and can sync their messages onto their computer through USB, it would be nice to have this feature on phones that do not have Windows Mobile. However, similar to how one can forward their Cornell mail to Gmail, one should be able to forward their text messages to a desired email account. That way, the user can still see their text messages when their phone has either died or does not work. Also, since text messages are small in size, one could store all their text messages on their computer's hard drive and maintain space on their phone.
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There are a few fixes I would make to fix the phone in class problem. Most phones come with a calendar or schedule application. One could enter in the classes into the schedule, classify the classes as "Silent," and have the phone automatically silence itself whenever the user is in class. Another option would be to have a sensor to sense what is a classroom based on noise level and topic of discussion among students as well as the professor as picked up from the phone's microphone.
Although some people have Windows Mobile Operation System on their phones and can sync their messages onto their computer through USB, it would be nice to have this feature on phones that do not have Windows Mobile. However, similar to how one can forward their Cornell mail to Gmail, one should be able to forward their text messages to a desired email account. That way, the user can still see their text messages when their phone has either died or does not work. Also, since text messages are small in size, one could store all their text messages on their computer's hard drive and maintain space on their phone.
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My redesigns have a few social-technical gaps in them. The first is the schedule feature. What if the user gets out of class early? There should be an easy override system installed. Also, the technology for voice recognition has not reached the levels where a computer, nevermind a phone, could interpret ambient noise. Finally, wireless phone companies do not have servers that can forward text messages to an email address.
My redesigns have a few social-technical gaps in them. The first is the schedule feature. What if the user gets out of class early? There should be an easy override system installed. Also, the technology for voice recognition has not reached the levels where a computer, nevermind a phone, could interpret ambient noise. Finally, wireless phone companies do not have servers that can forward text messages to an email address.
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I like your SMS to email forwarding idea. Today, actually, my phone got messed up and texts were received about 30 mins (or more) after they were sent. I was on my laptop most of this time, so I could've seen, and optimally responded to them, via the computer. Obviously the mobility of the phone is ideal for texting, but using something like Gmail (with a SMS filter) to backup, store, and act as a secondary way to receive texts would be awesome. It seems so obvious...why hasn't it been invented yet?
ReplyDeleteYou could make some serious cash off this...
Some cool ideas here. I like how you're thinking about using the phone's mic to pick up topics of discussion but I would imagine this to be problematic in terms of the mic being sensitive enough. Besides, don't most people leave their cell phone in their pocket/bag/purse? The scheduling though is a great idea, and I could definitely see myself doing this. Program it once, easy, and you're good to go. Never have to worry about your phone ringing and not on vibe.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't think the wireless phone companies having the servers to forward is a social-tech gap nor necessarily true. We're able to send a text from a computer to a phone, so one could gather that's it's just a matter of routing whatever data comes in. In any case, a soc-tech gap here would probably be closer to your e-mail knowing if your text is spam or not through a filter because of the different medium.
Great job though. Some neat ideas here!