Researches Look at "Whack" Gestures to Silence Phones
Researches Look at "Whack" Gestures to Silence Phones
Posted 01/13/2010 at 3:18pm
| by Jason Barry
5
Comments
Print
Though it’s not exactly curing cancer, or sustainable energy, some researchers think it’s important not to tick off every living soul in a movie cinema because you left your phone turned on. Enter “whack gestures.”
Researchers at Carnegie Melllon University in Pittsburg and Intel Labs in Seattle have created a “whack vocabulary” of gestures used to interact with accelerometer-equipped cell phones. The functionality is simple: whack your phone to shut it up. Chris Harrison, co-developer of the system at Carnegie Mellon, says, “I think for whack gestures to be commercially viable only two gestures might be desired: one to silence the phone, and a second to postpone an alert, ask the caller to try again in 5 minutes or snooze an alarm."
I think this is a great idea. It could lead to some hilarious outbursts of self-violence, all the while making the world a little less aggravating for everybody.
Photo Credit: Gizmodo
More like this
Morpheous416
January 14, 2010 at 8:04am
What cracks me up.. is that on some of these high end phones that could use this feature, the companies do not allow you to buy insurance for the phone. Accidents are not covered, thus "whacking" your phone and shattering the touch screen would be funny!
Well.. not if you own one.
Who
January 13, 2010 at 5:21pm
So i get in a car accident and I reach for my cell phone, only to find out it's been turned off by the impact...
Vegan
January 13, 2010 at 4:38pm
Or people simply need to learn which button silences their phone. I know where mine is, it's the button on the side. And yet I constantly see people fumbling to figure it out as if this situation has never come up before. Usually they can't figure it out and just let it ring till voicemail picks up.
People who don't know how to operate their stuff shouldn't have stuff.
mesiah
January 13, 2010 at 9:24pm
The beauty of this is that you don't even have to reach into your pocket to hit the button. Just whack your pants pocket and the phone shuts up. Although I agree that people should know where the button is to silence their phone, this method would kill the alert almost instantly, long before anyone could reach into their pocket and find the button.
gendoikari1
January 13, 2010 at 4:50pm
I think its the catharsis factor in being able to bitchslap your phone to make it shut up.
Lost hopes:
Warcraft IV
Timesplitters 4
Star Wars: Battlefront III
Mercenaries 3 (but with LucasArts)
Connect with MaximumPC
Featured Content
We introduce Intel's latest class of tablet killers and review 4 of the first Ultra...
Where have all the memorable videogame enemies gone?
This month's issue
Feature
11 Hardware Hacks
Feature
Overclock Your CPU
How-To
Supercharge Your Smartphone
Build It
A Powerful $830 Rig
Most Commented Articles
Latest Max PC Tweets
- maximumpc: Here's what the @horse_ebooks bookmarklet (http://t.co/brE6898A) does to Maximum PC: http://t.co/Y6OhO6zk12 hours 38 min ago
- maximumpc: Microsoft on Patents: Can't We All Just Get Along? http://t.co/g0vginvG14 hours 59 min ago
- maximumpc: Google Drive Cloud Storage: Is Google Preparing To Muscle In On Dropbox? http://t.co/lCWzeYmS15 hours 24 min ago
