Showing posts with label cellphones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cellphones. Show all posts

Monday, February 1, 2010

Apps Needed ~ ASAP!

To all you tech-savy, 20-somethings out there, I would like you to develop the following cellphone apps for me ASAP:

an app that signals loudly to warn me that I am about to cross the path of a bicyclist either riding illegally on the sidewalk or against traffic in the street

an app that randomly generates fictitious names for me to give to baristas that also stores the name so that when I pick up my order I can remember the name I used

an app that will map out for me a way to get from one address in Manhattan to another so that I will be under street scaffolding and therefore protected from rain and snow for the entire trip

an app that will store the exact location of the 'safe place' in my apartment in which I have just put something that needs to be kept in a safe place

an app that enables my phone to surreptiously take a picture of every new person I meet and store it along with that person's name

an app that tells me the ATM closest to my current location that will allow me to withdraw cash without fees

an app that correctly identifies the sex of babies I am cooing over before I put my foot in my mouth

and most important, an app that temporarily disables the cellphones of anyone within a 15 foot radius



Saturday, June 6, 2009

You Talking to Me? Are You Talking to Me?

I guess not! It took me a while to get used to cellphone conversations that are shared (unwillingly by me!) on streets, buses, elevators etc. I am still unable to tune them out. I catch myself eavesdropping...trying to imagine the person at the other end of the conversation. I have overheard confidential legal information, spurious financial information, appalling relationship information and countless sons, daughters, wives, husbands and significant others checking in with countless sons, daughters, wives, husbands and significant others!

But now, I have to deal with wireless headphones! I walk towards strangers on the street who I think are talking to me. I'm a polite person...the kind of person everyone stops and asks directions of...and that's what I think these people are doing...until they walk right past me continuing their conversations with "not me."

But I have already stopped, prepared to use my high school French or college Spanish to help another human being in need. My flow has been interrupted, my expectations dashed, my attention highjacked....all because of bluetooth technology. it's tough enough walking the streets of NYC without having to worry about "who's not talking to me!"