There are several times in our daily lives that I feel that we lack a standardized way to control mobile devices. Why should there even be a standard? Well, everyone (almost) has a cell phone today. These cell phones have a variety of capabilities – they have musical ringtones, cameras, music players, voice recorders, internet, and many more. The problem is that, with the devices being carried by almost everyone, a host of problems arise. A lot of offices have to ban cell phones with cameras, else they face information security issues with employees who can take photographs of sensitive information. Public areas which should have some peace and calm are usually full of cacophonic ring tones.
The Standard
The idea behind this standard is to have built-in capability in every cell phone such that all features can be turned-on/off by an external device which communicates with the cell phones through a standardized interface. These features can be:
- Ringer profile – allowing the cell phone to be put on a silent/vibrate profile, and restoring it to an earlier profile.
- Camera – allowing the cell phone’s camera feature to be turned on/off.
- Voice recorder – allowing the cell phone’s voice recording features to be turned on/off.
- Internet – allowing internet access to be turned on and off.
- Wireless networks – turning off access to various wireless features – cell phone network, wi-fi, Bluetooth, etc.
- Power – turning the device on/off.
This is just a small list, but if let’s suppose that all the cell phone devices that adhere to this standard have hardware level support for providing control over the above mentioned features. Further let’s assume that, there are control devices which can control various cell phones within their area of effect (each control device would have a presumably finite area of effect).
Under these assumptions, what good would such a standard be? Here are some problems (big and small) that can be solved, and the benefits that are gained by them.
Some benefits
- Onboard an airplane – Every airline can install one control device which turns off the power during takeoff and landing; and disables radio functions (cell phone network, wi-fi, Bluetooth, etc.) during flight for all the cell phones on board. The advantage is that in increases convenience of customers and at the same time increases compliance of airline security measures (whether real or imaginary).
- Meeting rooms, presentations, museums, libraries, movie theaters – there are so many places on the planet, where a ringing phone is most unwelcome. Control devices setup in such areas can be configured to switch every phone in their range to silent or vibrate modes. The benefit is that you won’t have to remind people to have to do this.
- Examination rooms, embassies, secure areas on airports, etc. – these are places where one is not allowed typically use a cell phone. Control devices installed here can be used to turn off any cell phones in range. Once again, this improves compliance, as well as allows people to hang on to their devices (for example, some examination or embassy scenarios ask you to surrender your cell phones to gain access).
- Corporate information security – once again, in a corporate setup, you can turn off the Bluetooth, camera, USB, and Internet features on the cell phones to prevent sensitive information to be captured and transferred through these channels. I have been to facilities which have asked me to leave my phone at the entrance for fears of espionage.
There can be tons of examples and applications if you just sit and think about it. Of course, the practicality of this approach is suspect, and a number of issues have to be resolved, but several times a day I think that if this kind of system was available, lives would be much simpler.
A lot of people around the world have wondered how they should use Google Wave. There has been a general trend of people first clamoring for wanting to get invited, and then not knowing what to do with the service once they get in. I am certainly part of this trend. The problem is that a number of people today don’t have time to find out for themselves how a new way of doing things is useful. This is certainly true of me, at least. If its not obvious to me at first go why something is useful for me, I typically don’t visit that service that often. The same happened to me with Twitter – which I joined in 2007, but didn’t start using regularly till earlier this year, when some of my friends became regulars.
