29 Apr 2008, 11:59PM PT
9 Apr 2008, 12:00AM PT
Closed: 29 Apr 2008, 11:59PM PT
Earn up to $100 for Insights on this case.
LetsTalk's PhoneTalk blog wants to add new voices to its website, and they're posting regular Cases here for the Techdirt Insight Community to add interesting new content to their site. The winning submissions for each Challenge Case will be posted (perhaps with some editing) on the PhoneTalk blog -- with credits to the author. The following is LetsTalk's next assignment:
We're looking for interesting phone apps or services that make your phone more useful to you. For example, do you use Google's GrandCentral to block undesirable calls? Have you installed any third party software on your phone that you use regularly? Have you tried any user-friendly services that can text message driving directions to your phone? Do you use any voicemail-to-text services?
11 Insights
Asking about smartphone tools is like asking for computer software, which already exists, so I'll discuss that later -- in the mean time, I'll discuss general phone tools.
The tools that we need for phones are fast, free tools. I use goog-411 because it's fast and free. Grandcentral is cool, but it's only free "for now", and presumably as it goes into full swing, it will start to cost money or otherwise become too slow to be useful. For directions to work sent to my phone, they would have to arrive all at once and accurately, or else it is not useful. The iPhone is cool, but it suffers from a bit of overcomplication, in that it takes way longer to get the information from the iphone versus just calling goog-411 , connecting and getting the info that way.
I want to be able to make a phone call and get any information I could get over the internet, in the same way that goog-411 gets me phone numbers. Maybe a service that helps me find the phone number of the place that would have the info I need would be good. For example, if I want movie tickets, I should be able to call and say 'movie tickets' and the theater name, and get a service where i can purchase the tickets over the phone. I don't think most people would need a smartphone if they could just call and get the same information. Furthermore, a phone's natural interface is the phone itself, so forcing people to hen-peck on the handset isn't really helping (especially if they're trying to drive -- and let's face it, people are going to use their phones while driving).
Also, on phone services that I'm calling into, I want to be able to skip ahead in the menu so i can save time. If every time i call a service, i have to wait through 30 seconds of explanation for how it works, that's really wasting my time over say a month of calling twice a day (that would waste about 30 cell-minutes that I have to pay for!) I should be able to skip over the instructions with some simple key press and get to the service itself right away. This would save the service bandwidth as well by reducing the average call time.
In short: my favourite application takes the Caller ID of an incoming call, checks to see whether the number exists as a contact, and, if not, sends a reverse lookup request to the provider.
This application often shows me the caller’s name even while the phone is still ringing. It is priceless for taking important calls while avoiding unwelcome ones.
Bill Burke Fri Apr 11 6:33am |
This sounds like an absolutely useful/valuable tool! Could I implore you you send me the name, to my email? phoneportal at gmail.com ? |
(Warning.. Lengthy, and detailed)
____
» My experience with Grand Central:
At first I absolutely loved Grand Central, then suddenly it began announcing every incoming call as being
"Anonymous", even the local test calls I made from landlines with perfectly good CallerID assigned.
Moreover, my callers began telling me they were hearing a new, 9-13 second delay before they heard a
ring-confirm tone, which prompted many callers to hang up, thinking the call had failed...
My calls and my emails to Grand Central went without even an auto-response. (Sigh)
Oh well, maybe they'll fix the interLATA network-to-network bugs, maybe not..
I've written and blogged about voicemail-to-text services before, they simply don't work. With present day
configurations, they never will - they defy the basic tenets of quality speech recognition.
To-wit:
As technology evolves so will remote speech recognition that is scalable on the order required for services like
voicemail-to-text to be available and viable for the everyday user. The recent CITA announcements, by the likes
of giants like Yahoo! and Nuance make it clear that mobile speech recognition is entering a new era, and that's
great news.
This time next year -
Who knows .. ?
Devin Moore Fri Apr 11 6:15am |
why wouldn't you just have different numbers for spanish speakers to dial in for that spinvox service, assuming it was that hard to decipher all different possible languages with one number? Furthermore, if voice-to-text doesn't work, then what are all those 'naturally speaking' translators for the desktop? Why couldn't you just do whatever that is over the phone? |
I have used Fring and find it absolutely useful for people who carry a mobile phone and want top get connected to their contacts whether it is a personal meeting or professional conversation. I installed Fring on my Nokia S60 3rd Edition phone and I can call ither Fring users for free using mobile VoIP. Fring works through WiFi, GPRS, EDGE and also through 3G services. It is also available for Windows mobile 5 and Woindows Mobile 6. It is a use ful application for all the mobile enterprise users and takes seconds to install. The application will let you know who is online and who is not and aprt from this it lests you use Skype, MSN Messenger, GTalk and other host of services.
This is how Fring works. (Image courtesy - Crunchbase)
I have found Fring to be very useful and a great application for buddies. If both of them have Fring then you are not away from each other.
I use a Samsung SPH-A920 on Sprint and I am always trying to add value to my unlimited data plan with various third-party applications. What follows is a summary of the applications I use on a regular basis and would recommend to others:
With a smartphone and mobile internet connection it's easy to take advantage of some compelling phone tools. But, most services still cater to the masses and that means interacting through voice or text message.
This is a list of mainstream phone tools that will help you stay connected and informed. While creating this list it became obvious how aggressively Google is pursuing the mobile space.
Jott (voice)
Mosio (Jott, text)
Google 411 (voice)
Google Calendar (Jott, text)
Google SMS (text)
Sandy (Jott)
Twitter (Jott, text)
I've read the various Insights submitted here, and visited many of the mentioned websites.
A lot of them appear to be pretty useful, especially the ones that are mentioned by
Rick Frauton (mobilerss), above.
The problem is, IMHO, not the interface, but the user experience and it's cost.
Mobile web browsing, IM and the like on mobile devices is a utilitarian experience,
not a useful tool experience.
For the most part, the universal mobile device size and form-factor alone is a limiting
factor that's incurable;
.
Using today's devices for what can be done on the "Mobile Web" has a very high cost:
It requires single-tasking on devices where & when ambient light and/or
our surroundings are conducive.
.
Former Yahoo! Mobile evangelist turned startup entrepreneur Russell Beattie has called it quits;
and he made some startlingly succinct comments as to why:
.
» If Beattie is correct, this begs the question..
How much, of the forecast mobile traffic that never appeared..
Is primarily because of the high user-experience cost?
Speech Recognition is destined to become the next user paradigm,
and it enables the user to multi-task, while accessing the "Mobile Web";
and very important to road warriors - it is legal while driving.
.
The wonderful news is that this can be done now -
And can be done over the voice channel - Online access is unnecessary.
No worries over capricious data rates, chasing hot spots, fading connections.
Adondo Corporation, makers of PAL technology, have an application which assigns user's workstations
and/or home PC's a phone number, where a speech profile resides, trained by a single user. Users can
then call their own computer, and do a wide variety of tasks by speech alone (including managing Outlook);
and the recognition is far more than impressive.
Adondo has now begun to migrate the best of this technology to a server environment, where a user's
remotely-trained profile resides, and callers can call their PC or workstation, via it's unique phone number..
And can 'talk the night away' - getting amazing recognition accuracy with advanced artificial intelligence.
And.. Everything happens over the voice channel;
As fast as one commands - the computer responds.
Hands Free.
Legal while Driving
I use Adondo's PAL frequently; it's refreshing to simply say into
my mobile phone, via my hands-free headset:
"Get my email" and moments later, I'm hearing my email read;
Hot contact messages first.
or
"What's the traffic on Route 66?" or "What's the weather?"
I haven't looked at the phone, haven't had to thumb anything,
I'm happily continuing what I was doing before I undertook the above,
without missing a beat.
Doesn't that beat having to pull over and/or find a shady spot,
and of course.. squinting at a 2' X 2.5' inch screen,
then thumb around for about 10 minutes..
Any day of the week?
Anywhere at all?
.
But I'm fascinated by a clever service offered by Triple A called AAA Mobile. It uses your phone's GPS data to identify the closest restaurants and hotels — but it also offers the auto association's own quality ratings. (And it even identifies which ones offer special discounts for Triple A subscribers.) Verizon offers a similar service called VZ Navigator (which reportedly makes it easy to find the closest movie theatre.) But the most compelling scenario for cell phones has always been "What if I break down somewhere on the highway?" With AAA Mobile, your exact location is automatically transmitted when you call for a tow truck.
This is where cell phones are a good fit: you use mobile phones when you're mobile. Google Maps is handy when you're planning a route across town — but it's even handier to have it on your cell phone. And now instead of guiding the way to stationary objects, cell phones can use GPS locators to identify the current location of your friends. Services like FindWhere's "Live Contacts" will tell you how close your friends are (as long as they're using the same services). Ten years ago, no one would've dreamed of an application like this — because it simply wasn't technologically practical. But we live in interesting times...
A few years ago MobilRelay tested a service actually that turned the cell phone into a movie ticket. After buying a ticket online, the theatre would transmit an image of a barcode which could be scanned for one movie admission. I thought of that today when Microsoft announced a new service they're offering through TellMe Networks. Not only can you get showtimes (and driving directions) over your phone — you can buy tickets through Fandango. I haven't tested this, but I'm intrigued. Most phone applications require you to push buttons and then listen for the next voice prompt — but if you're punching the buttons, you aren't holding the phone to your ear. TellMe uses speech recognition, which should make the whole transaction surprisingly painless. And it even supplies driving directions.
Of course, today another news story informed us that Spike Lee was creating a movie specifically for the cell phone. Pretty soon, we won't need to get driving directions — because the cell phone will be the theatre!