I’ve mentioned before how frustrating I find ‘helpful’ technology.
Cordless phones for instance.
They are helpful because now you can have a phone ANYWHERE. The problem is that now you have phones that could be ANYWHERE & you can’t actually find them when they start ringing because whoever used them last set them down where ever they happened to be when they were done talking.
And an amazing number of people in my house seem to be in linen closets when this occurs.
Or under small tables with 2” of clearance.
Then there is my wireless router.
It helpfully scans the airways for a good transmission band to send my signal. Only half the time the phone likes that band too so when you actually find a phone & answer it, the internet cuts out.
Getting a phone that can be told to leave that band alone would solve that problem, but not the problem of locating it in the first place.
Plugging the router directly into my computer would also solve the internet problem, at least for me, others would continue to suffer, but I’m on the computer the most so it should be me that gets the cable connection. But I still don’t know where the phone is.
What I want, what would be really, honest and for true helpful, would be to combine these problems for a solution.
The phone & the router obviously use the same band. OK fine. So why can’t a caller ID box pop up on my computer when the phone rings? My DirectTV receiver does it on my TV so I know it can be done. This would let me know if it’s even worth making the effort of looking for the phone. And since they are exchanging this bit of information, why not put a chip or something in the phones that will also relay location information?
So I’d get a box that said
John Smith
800-555-1212
#1 Main bathroom linen closet
#2 Under kitchen table
when the phone rang and could then decide whether I really want to talk to John badly enough to get up and go to the main bathroom or the kitchen to answer the phone. I’d also know which was closer, saving me time.
Obviously some set up would be required so the software knew the various locations in my house. Some form of highly localized GPS probably.
But it would need the internet to work so that particular disconnect glitch would need to fixed to make it work properly.
Here is the interesting thing…
I know people who could make this work if I could catch their interest with it. I just need to decide which approach would work better…appealing to their avarice by suggesting it could make a lot of money, or appealing to their need to be right by suggesting it absolutely cannot be done.
So for the sake of approach #1, would you be interested in this helpful bit of technology or would you be too worried that a security breach might let the whole interwebs know the exact location of your linen closet to give it a try?
