Sat on the train down to London this morning I saw a great piece of normob behaviour. A little bit like Ewan’s recent ‘Does your phone do numbers?’ post, it made me smile, so I thought I’d share it with you.
An older gentleman (possibly 65 ish) got an old Nokia out of his jacket pocket (unfortunately I didn’t see the exact model); took it out of its protective wallet and then got ready to make a call. However, instead of accessing the phone’s address book, he opened up a piece of paper that was in the wallet and typed the number into his phone.
Having a written list of the most used numbers was something that my grandparents used to keep by their old landline phone. If they were alive, I could imagine them using a mobile in exactly the same way as this guy sat near me did. This guy didn’t want to use all the clever applications that you and I might … he just wanted to make voice calls while he was mobile.
While I agree that the industry needs to keep innovating, part of the issue is that normobs like this are still a big part of the market for the operators et al.
Of course, as I was on an East Midlands train, the poor guy had no reception … so even his most basic requirement wasn’t met!
Future app for Nokias: on startup, you are prompted to take a photo of said handwritten list of most-used numbers (or noticeboard at home, or page in FiloFax etc).
It OCR's the info, and presents it on-screen for confirmation.
Naaaahhhh……
Evernote could do that quite easily!
He sounds like a terrorist using a 1-time-only pre-paid phone to call his contact, and by not keeping the number in the phone memory it reduces the chance of his mission being compromised. You should have grassed him up.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44816000/…
yeah, so could ScanR, in theory 😉
Problem is having a lense / pixel combo that allows you to capture text. Anything below about 2MP/no Macro mode can't get businesscard info into ScanR. The resolution is too low, and moving closer looses focus.
approved
John, you're probably right … next time.
Future app for Nokias: on startup, you are prompted to take a photo of said handwritten list of most-used numbers (or noticeboard at home, or page in FiloFax etc).
It OCR's the info, and presents it on-screen for confirmation.
Naaaahhhh……
Evernote could do that quite easily!
He sounds like a terrorist using a 1-time-only pre-paid phone to call his contact, and by not keeping the number in the phone memory it reduces the chance of his mission being compromised. You should have grassed him up.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44816000/…
yeah, so could ScanR, in theory 😉
Problem is having a lense / pixel combo that allows you to capture text. Anything below about 2MP/no Macro mode can't get businesscard info into ScanR. The resolution is too low, and moving closer looses focus.
approved
John, you're probably right … next time.
He sounds like a terrorist using a 1-time-only pre-paid phone to call his contact, and by not keeping the number in the phone memory it reduces the chance of his mission being compromised. You should have grassed him up.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44816000/…
yeah, so could ScanR, in theory 😉
Problem is having a lense / pixel combo that allows you to capture text. Anything below about 2MP/no Macro mode can't get businesscard info into ScanR. The resolution is too low, and moving closer looses focus.
approved
John, you're probably right … next time.