Fuddland

In the pub last night I was trying to recall the name and number of the service where you hold your phone up to the speaker and moments later they send you a text message with the name of the song that’s playing — all I knew was that it used only the numbers down the centre column of the keypad, and was four digits long. I didn’t fancy going through all 24 possibilities and unfortunately I didn’t remember it in time as the song passed, and now I’ve even forgotten how it went. But a moment’s googling today revealed the service is provided by Shazam and the number is 2580: straight down the centre of the keypad from top to bottom — pretty easy to remember really!

Coincidentally, today I read about a new endeavor to provide a similar service, but one that identifies buildings from photos that you send it [via MMS or email, I would imagine], the idea being that this then pinpoints your precise location to a much greater level of accuracy than using GPS or the base station[s] your mobile is currently using [I really wanted to use the word “triangulation” just then], and it can then provide you with detailed directions to your intended destination. This is particularly handy in situations where GPS can’t work, such as when there are obstructions to the satellites’ “line of sight”.

It does seem a bit of a waste of time developing this technology though, because we know better systems already exist: have these guys from Cambridge never seen Enemy of the State?

Now we have services to tell us to what we’re listening and what we’re seeing, it’s only a matter of time before electronic noses are built into our phones, for a “dial 7664 to identify a smell” service [and you just know the vast majority of smells submitted are going to be in the intestinal gas genre]. Or how about a “what’s this foodstuff?” Handy for those lost-in-the-wilderness, can-I-eat-these-berries? situations, and a must for every Roman emperor for whom times are hard and they’re in need of a cheap alternative to the position of Official Checker That The Food Isn’t Poisoned. Admittedly this is rather a niche market, but one that’s ripe for trapping nonetheless.