Call CC

Call CC is a new product idea that was born when my colleague at work was reprimanded by our boss that he’d like to be CCed on all correspondence with a certain client. My colleague mentioned the fact that the recent correspondence was on the phone and not e-mail so as much as she’d like to have CCed him, it wasn’t possible. And crack! A new idea is hatched.

Product Innovation - Using Call CC

Call CC would be an app that would need to be installed on your smart phone and possibly on the receiver’s and CCed people’s smart phones. If Call CC is only installed on your phone, when making a phone call through the Call CC app, you would be able to CC additional contacts in your phone. The person receiving the phone call would be notified that the incoming call has additional people CCed on it and that person would be able to choose whether to answer the call or not. If the person answers, at the end of the conversation, the people who were CCed would be notified via SMS or e-mail of the following:

• That person X called person Y
• The time of the call
• The duration of the call
• All the CCed people on the call

If Call CC is installed on your phone and on the CCed people’s phones, when making a phone call through the Call CC app, the CCed people would receive an incoming phone call that would state that they are being CCed on a call from you to the person you are calling. These CCed people would be able to accept the CCed phone call and listen to the conversation (and perhaps even take part). The person who you called would be notified that the incoming call has additional people CCed on it and that they will be participating in the phone call (similar to a conference call). That person would be able to choose whether to answer the call or not. If the person answers, at the end of the conversation, the people who were CCed would be notified via SMS of the same information as before, with the addition of a list of the CCed people who participated or listened in on the phone call.

 

Call CC could also be developed to provide a transcript or recording of the phone call to the people CCed, to work with Skype, or with regular phones. In my opinion, BCC should also be included, on the condition that the person receiving the phone call is informed that people are BCCed on the phone call. This way, even though the identities of the BCCed people are not provided, the person receiving the call would be able to make a decision on whether or not to answer the phone knowing that some people (who are unknown to the receiver) may be listening to the call.

 

In today’s hi-speed, hi-tech, ultra-transparent business world, Call CC would provide a valuable time-saving resource for millions of people. Call CC is a new idea that could reinvent how we communicate with each other in the business world and would increase the faith our managers have in our competence. It would also enable our managers to constantly be in the loop on our projects and save us having to constantly provide tedious status reports. The business advantages offered to the telemarketing world are beyond reckoning.

 

Frankly, since there’s not much difference to the CC and BCC functionality on e-mails, you may be wondering about the actual product innovation of this idea. Well, it’s in the way that Call CC applies one tried and tested method to a different medium, that of verbal communication rather than written communication.

Measure Mate

Ever wondered how far away that mountain is from you, or that building, or what the distance is between you and that tree, or that car in front of you? With Measure Mate, your speculations need no longer lead you astray. This new idea, based on a new product, takes the form of an app for future smart phones with 3D cameras. It’s only a matter of time before smart phones are equipped with 3D camera (2 lenses) functionality and that’s when this new app idea gains credence. Measure Mate is a distance measuring app, based on triangulation calculations, rather than echo or laser techniques. Triangulation means calculating all the sides and angles in a network of triangles based on the length of at least one side of a triangle. Therefore, the precise measurement of the length of a single baseline can determine the scale of an entire triangulation network. In other words, if you take a picture of a tree with 2 cameras placed exactly 5 cm apart (or any other distance), you can calculate the exact distance to the tree in the pictures. Triangulation is not a new technique, astronomers have been using it for years to calculate distances to stellar objects (see parallax), and neither is stereoscopic imaging for creating the illusion of depth in 2D images a new idea (see stereoscopy). But Measure Mate is. Once smart phones include 3D cameras, the exact length of the first side of the triangle becomes a constant. 

 

This is how it works:

1. You take a picture with Measure Mate (which is really two pictures: one from each lens).
2. Measure Mate superimposes the images one atop the other to create a new picture.
3. You select an object to which you want to know the distance in the new picture.
4. Measure Mate triangulates the distance to the object based on the distance between the two lenses.

You can read more about the necessary calculations here.

Measure Mate should be extremely cheap and easy to program – all the formulas already exist and all the technological concepts already exists. The most expensive budget item would probably be copyright protection for the app. I also think the potential market for Measure Mate is virtually limitless, from civilian to military markets, who wouldn’t pay just a few dollars for this piece of product innovation? Or forget about selling it, make it a free app and capitalize from advertising.

Who's That App

This is a new idea for a smartphone application and is based on some already existing technologies for searching the web with pictures rather than keywords. Who’s That App would enable you to take a picture of someone you know or want to know better with your smartphone and would search the web for any matches based on face recognition software. Imagine being at a bar and falling head over heels for someone. You could either approach him or her and try get a phone number or email address or you could ask around if anyone you know knows that person. Who’s That App would provide another option - take a picture of the person and get to know him or her a little better through a Facebook page or anywhere else that person’s picture appears. Who’s That App would enable you to be more informed about the person you wish to approach. Dating and matchmaking services aside, Who’s That App is definitely something I’d like to have on my phone, simply because I hate seeing people in the street that I recognize and should remember their names but never do… Who’s That App would appeal to a very wide target audience and shouldn’t be all that expensive to develop considering the fact that it’s based on already existing picture search engines and facial recognition software. It should just be a matter of knitting them together – which is the new idea here – and developing an easy-to-use yet awesome graphic user interface.