From: hellsop_at_ninehells.com
Date: Thu Mar 31 2005 - 10:53:17 PST
Okay, this has been bugging me for a while... and the topicality comes
from that I think the Newt acutally has the capacity if someone wanted
to implement.
Cellphones, laptops, PDAs almost all have the capacity to send data back
and forth, via serial, IRDA, Bluetooth, whatever. But it's a HUGE deal
to do: power up/unlock device, find data transfer function, select
which method to pay attention to (serial, bluetooth, IRDA, ouija psychic
wave, etc), turn on data reception, THEN finally it's ready to go.
Similar deal is required to send information: find the send function,
pick the medium, turn it on, find the information that wants to be sent,
confirm it, etc. When it comes time to give someone a phone number or
email address, it's almost always faster to find a pen and scribble the
information on the back of an ATM receipt than it is to go through all
that. What these devices all need is dedicated buttons that
do all of that crud in *one* step. One button that turns on EVERY
available interface to the "ready to listen" mode, without confirming
anything more and puts stuff into whatever the devices inbox is (and
they all have that inbox already). The other button turns on every
interface available and squirts out the owner's vcard as soon as it
guesses something is listening.
[ And, yes, for any bozo out there thinking "hey, I'll patent this",
I'm staking this as prior art as of the date on this message, and here
also stating that I've seen no prior art, patented or otherwise that
makes me think that this idea was rooted anywhere else. Also hereby
I grant anyone, anywhere, and at any time license to implement this
idea provided that no attempt is made to limit the useful functioning
with any other device, or by any means attempt to prevent other parties
from implementing this idea. By way of example, in practice "one action
send" and "one action recieve" of identification/contact information
must be available to the lowest common denominator on your device: If
your device speaks OBEX and your own proprietary protocol, you may not
implement this idea for your own protocol but not OBEX. ]
--
88. If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them
for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.
--Peter Anspach's list of things to do as an Evil Overlord
--
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