the save me-get this cell phone
today’s edition of the business model of the hour comes with heavy credit to Don Park. may he get to japan someday.
this edition is also brought to you by the letters “o” and “h” and the number “5.”
in our story, we envision a cell phone, much like any other cell phone, but with a couple key innovations.
the first is the “save me” mode. in this mode, the phone is pre-programmed to recognize a certain speaker, wait a few seconds and ring. the use case: i want to go to this party, but lisa might be there. and i really, REALLY don’t want to talk to her. well, good customer. fear not. simply tell the phone to listen for lisa from your pocket, and when lisa starts talking anywhere within phone-shot, it will ring, and you can make up some bogus excuse to run away.
the second is the “save me now” mode. in this mode, the phone listens to your own voice, waiting for a key word or phrase. upon detecting the key word or phrase, it rings, giving you a chance to make up a bogus excuse and run away. use case is similar to the first example, but you didn’t think lisa would be at the party. program the phone to respond to “so nice to see you” and simply saying “lisa, it’s SO NICE TO SEE YOU” triggers the “save me” ring.
the third is the “get this” mode. in this mode, the phone waits for a set of triggering keywords, then begins recording and/or dials a number and/or connects to a distribution server and records/transmits/broadcasts whatever it picks up. the use case here is industrial espionage (or porn. ok it’s porn.). program the phone to respond to “great idea, tell me more” and go take a tour of your competitors manufacturing plant. this obviously works great for picture and video-enabled phones too (i told you it was porn).
of course, we’re talking about a phone with some brains here. so, multiple commands can trigger multiple modes, and each action can be annotated for content and situation. add gps, and tag everything by location. then you can trigger the streaming video of the really cute… uh. puppy. yeah. puppy that you see walking down the street. and broadcast live, with voice annotation, to all your friends who haven’t made it into the Big Blue Room this month – and they’ll know where to find the… uh. puppy.
or, they can sit at home and write mapping applications to plot the locations of puppies all over the world. after all, if you can program it, it’s even better then being there.
so, thanks don. and thank you, dear reader.