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."

once again, trying to get machines to "think"

[acroyear]

since people obviously don't anymore...

But...

[gEvil (beta)]

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

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:But...

[jrumney]

More to the point, can it tell the difference between my pocket in a cinema, and my pocket in my boss's office?

Pocket Watch

[clickety6]

A lot of people use their phone as a watch these days, so it would be nice to have the possibiltiy to turn off the phone functionality but keep the clock functionality. Ditto with phones that have cameras, PDA capabilities, etc. That way you could still use them in aircraft, hospitals etc. without having the problems an active phone are supposed to cause.

All the phones I've had are either fuly ON or fully OFF with maybe juts an alarm fucntion being available.

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?

monitoring WHAT?

[YrWrstNtmr]

monitoring sound light levels to determine

So your phone is constantly 'listening' and evaluating the sound level.

Listening to what, exactly? I can see the headline in a couple of years:
"Your cellphone is listening in to all your conversations"
And thanks to a new virus, is transmitting them!"

Re:I heard something about this long ago

[plover]

Thankfully, restaurants and theaters are allowed to block cellphone transmissions here in the Netherlands.

We went to a nice restaurant yesterday morning for breakfast. The building was entirely copper clad. We got no signal inside, and we were just fine with that.

They call themselves "Copper Bleu", but I think a better name for them would be "Faraday's."

Re:vibrate?

[dave420]

It will work regardless of whether the phone owner is rude or not. Like someone on the bus who gets a call they don't want to answer, and their phone is not on silent. They just stare at the phone as it rings and rings. I hate 'em. There is absolutely no reason for phones to have ring tones at all. The amount of intrinsic rudeness in mobile phones is ridiculous.

Re:good sales strategy

[somersault]

A venue should be able to mark themselves as "quiet" or "silent" by having a "venue flag broadcasting device".

woohoo! Then we could all carry around broadcasters that stop anyone within 200 metres from us from having their phone ring _

I've not actually had any problem with people in cinemas here recently, maybe people are just more polite in the UK (and I've been going to the cinema a LOT in the last few months because I have an 'unlimited' card ^^; )

Always thought that this would be a good BT profil

[Scyber]

Silent or something like that. A device could be installed in locations that would try and pair with any bluetooth devices. You could allow the device the first time, and then everytime you visit that location again, it would automatically shift your phone into silent mode. Would be great for meeting rooms & movie theaters.

Re:It's Called 'Vibrate'

[Anonymous Coward]

Very tacky.

But notice that if your insult had targeted an Islamic mosque instead of a Christian church, the targets of your joke would be murdering innocent people right now.

My cell phone goes to a lot of movies, I guess

[ScentCone]

If (as TFA suggests), monitoring the ambient light is an indication of cinema-ness, then my phone, which spends many hours in my coat pocket or in a flap-covered holster, must think I'm the most entertained guy in the world.

BTW, if they're going to allow scheduled ring times, I think that's great. But (especially relative to the movie scenario) a very short keystroke sequence that says "don't ring for the next 1/2/4 hours" would be used 100 times more often than TOD programmability, IMHO.

Re:Silent

[Overzeetop]

There's some merit to this, actually, though it has certain limits. I'd love to know when I call someone's cell (especially those who have no landline) whether I'm going to interrupt them in a meeting or during a meal. A lot of folks will not put their phones on vibe or silent - some are inconsiderate, some are just forgetful - when they don't really want to be disturbed. When I call, I have a reason - I rarely call "just to chat". I want someone's full attention, and if they are busy, I'd rather get voicemail than interrupt. The flip side is the occasional time I might call just to talk. I don't want to interrupt something important with a useless call. I'll just hang up.

Then, there's the reason to want forced ring-through. If something happens to a family member, I want someone to interrupt me, whatever I happen to be doing. Even if that just happens to be a vibe when I've got the cell set for silent. If it's serious, I'd rather be rude. I'd probably not give out the "ring anywhere" access to most folks, or put a block in the phone (say, a per-number access level). Likewise, if I have an urgent message, I'd like to make sure the person gets notified of my call.

This won't fix the problem of rude users who - rather than leaving the room - will take a call anywhere, anytime, and talk at full volume. That's not something technology can't fix (though I would recommend a location-specific bark-collar device for repeat-offenders while they're in otherwise quiet spaces)

Re:It's Called 'Vibrate'

[lampiaio]

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

Well, you really don't have to. My college has a (free) service that allows you to subscribe to your class schedule in an iCal-readable file format, which is then exported to my bluetooth cellphone so it knows when to automatically change to silent mode. I don't really have to enter anything into my phone, and any changes in schedule are automatically re-exported to my phone whenever it gets within range of the computer.

you know, it's that newfangled "technology" thingie, as they call it. It's supposed to work.

When vibrate won't work

[Whiteout]

I've always thought a good solution would be to have a small vibrating device fixed to your watch (say), which would be triggered by your phone (bluetooth or similar). You wouldn't miss any call when the phone's away from you, and perhaps you could configure the phone to ring audibly if it isn't able to contact your (*ahem*) vibrating device. Best of all worlds?

Andy

why not fix the obvious problem first?

[philipgar]

The idea of a smart phone doesn't sound too appealing, there are just too many exceptions to rules, and I am generally better at choosing for myself.

I think before we even get into changing phones so they're smart, why not change them so they're not retarded first? The biggest problem I have with phones is that many of them (the two motorolas I have) beep when you change yourself from "loud" mode to silent. At least when you don't have the phone open. Now what idiot thought up this idea? You're sitting in class, or a theater, and suddenly realize you left your phone on. Now you have to make a decision, do you annoy those around you by having your phone beep at you as you turn the ringer off, or do you run the risk that it might ring.

Also as other people have said, once it rings and you hit the ignore button, don't beep for a voice mail message, or ring again from the same person etc.

While people who use their phones all the time are generally better about remembering to turn off their phones, those of us who get a couple calls a week, and almost never during the day often don't think about the fact that they have their phone with them wherever they are.

Basically, just fix the idiotic notions programmed into cell phones, and then think about smart phones.

Phil