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Human beings are social animals. Personality, mood, body language etc of a person determine the way one socializes in a group setting. However, when in person one-on-one interactions are replaced by telephonic meetings, there is hardly any scope of finding out the other person’s mood or body language.

Caller tunes address this social void to some extent. The song or music that a user chooses to greet one’s callers, demonstrates one’s mood and personality. As a result this concept gained instant popularity among the most socially active segment of population- the youth. Once the technology had made its inroads into the market and everyone else became aware of it, it spread like wild fire across the telecom subscriber circle. Today a significant percentage of mobile phone users across the country use caller tunes.

However, a caller tune can only partially meet our needs of depicting our moods and personality. Caller tunes are static. Once selected, they remain unless again changed by the user. Moreover songs can not depict the multitude of feelings that constitute human emotions.

What if we had a tool that would automatically pick up signals from the body (ECG, EEG, Body Temperature, Hormone Levels from sweat etc.) and determine one’s mood and then update the greeting status of one’s cell phone?

And what if it also allowed users to set custom ‘availability’ status based on one’s schedule as available in instant messengers? For example one could have status like ‘busy in a meeting’, ‘with family’, ‘at home’ etc that would be available to the caller even before the call is placed. This would not only save time (and sometimes embarassment) for the caller but also for the recipient.

I don’t know when such things would be practically possible. But one thing is for sure- when it happens, I’d be one of the first to use it…

Crazy Ideas | soubhik | October 24, 2009 1:24 pm

2 Comments

By ayanb, October 27, 2009 @ 8:06 pm

Amazing idea be! Crazy indeed. Lets moot this idea to Airtel in a couple of years, we will surely have this one day
By Teefhoinope, December 12, 2009 @ 2:14 pm

Wow loved reading your article. I submitted your feed to my reader!!