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Handhelds Hardware

Smart Cellphone Would Spend Your Money 191

Posted by timothy from the not-for-the-weirdo-spender dept.
jonknee writes "MobileTracker pointed to an article in the latest New Scientist about some new 3G mobile phone software that tries to learn your habits and start making your decisions for you. This sounds like science fiction, but it's happening now. The phone will be able to make reservations for you at your favorite steak house and then save seats for you at the hot event in town. Neat!"
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Smart Cellphone Would Spend Your Money More

Smart Cellphone Would Spend Your Money

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  • I swear honey. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:20PM (#6268313)
    I swear honey, I didn't rent these pornos, my cell phone did!

  • Neat! (Score:4, Informative)

    by spirality ( 188417 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:20PM (#6268314) Homepage
    Not really. Scary yes. I'll make my own decisions thank you.

    -Craig.

    • Re:Neat! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Hogwash McFly ( 678207 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:40PM (#6268446)
      The problem with devices like these is that human nature is the most illogical thing in the world. People love something one minute and hate it the next, you can't predict people's actions and decisions as much as you might think.

      This _might_ be useful for the running-like-clockwork suits that have a strict routine: getting the same train everyday, having lunch at the same restaurant etc. but even then you're still gonna get a lot of incorrect purchases/bookings.

      Computers should automate boring/repetitive tasks to make our lives easier. I don't know about you but I quite enjoy the excitement of booking a holiday or enjoy the experience of booking a fancy restaraunt for a big dinner.
      • Yup... And even for the suits, everything ends up "automatizing" by itself... You can have a yearly train ticket, the guy at the restaurant sees you everyday and knows that you're coming, so he's saving a table for you, etc...

        No need for a phone that does it for you...

      • Computers should automate boring/repetitive tasks to make our lives easier.

        I 110% agree, in the sense that computers should absolutely not become our lives for us.

        It seems that there is some cultural evolution occuring where people are literally addicted to computers and looking to put computers into inappropriate portions of their lives. This may be why hard-core artificial intelligence projects are not bearing fruit--deep down, we are telling ourselves not to push this stuff too far.

        Perhaps the worst

    • Re:Neat! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SunPin ( 596554 )
      My first thought was, "why the hell is this neat?"

      This phone has moved to the upper region of my DO NOT BUY list.

      • Well my phone thinks that this item is indeed neat so has moved it to the upper region of my DO BUY list.

        Error: Infinite Loop
    • ashcroft with a cellphone database that tracks patterns in your movements and then makes decisions on them "for your benefit"?

      hoorray for another invasive worthless system

      you know it's a matter of time before the data is subpoenaed (sp?) and used Against You In A Court of Law because afterall gov't isn't jsut for national security it's for being yoru parent.. i wonder how long before we have curfews enforced by tracking devices that WE pay for ..

      but this is under the guise of a service, so it must be oka
    • I've already got a girlfriend, what do i need this thing for?

  • In Related News (Score:5, Funny)

    by Blutarsky ( 580739 ) * on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:21PM (#6268318)
    Microsoft announces new line of "smart" cell phones along with new catchphrase "This IS where you'll go today"

    • How about SERVICE? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:37PM (#6268425)
      How about they make a phone and a service plan that gives you quality connections and no dropped calls? Why do I need phones that wipe my butt for me but can't make a phonecall?
      • Your problem isn't the phones, but rather the service providers.

        • Re:How about SERVICE? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by davebarz ( 546161 ) *
          I work at Circuit City. I'd say 80-90% of the cell phones we sell (Nokia, Motorola, Sanyo, Samsung) with a service plan come back broken within the first year. No data on ones without service plan.

  • Scheduling? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bob McCown ( 8411 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:21PM (#6268319)
    I hope it checks with my calendar to make sure I'm free for that friday night concert!
    • Ok, I think I've read too many RIAA/MPAA related articles today, but it will make sure, that you are free for that concert ;7
    • I hope it checks with my calendar to make sure I'm free for that friday night concert!

      Why would you want that? Ideally, it should make ALL your appointments, and keep its own calendar of those.

      Then you never have to make your own decisions ever again. Sweeeeet.

    • Re:Scheduling? (Score:5, Funny)

      by WarpForge ( 683567 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @03:11PM (#6268599)
      I hope it checks with my calendar to make sure I'm free for that friday night concert!

      The API call for IsSlashdotUser() is much easier and altogether, just as accurate.

  • And every time payday rolls around... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Manhigh ( 148034 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:22PM (#6268320)
    the phone automatically buys a few shares of Nokia's stock

  • remeber TiVo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QEDog ( 610238 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:22PM (#6268322)
    Hey, the other consumer electronic that guessed what you liked was TiVo, and everybody complains about how it assumes the wrong stuff all the time. How can this be better, or 'neat' then? I don't want my electronics to guess what I want, I want them to be predictable. That is the only way i can rely on them, if I can predict them, instead of the other way around.

    • Re:remeber TiVo (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gfody ( 514448 ) * on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:26PM (#6268356)
      but when tivo guesses wrong the only thing it costs you is some redeemable hard disk space. imagine if it cost you $$$$$
      • Actually - it doesn't even cost disk space. The Tivo will only record unrequested shows if there is free space on the disk. It will delete them immediately to make room for requested shows. It simply puts what would be otherwise blank disk space to a potentially good use. At no point will a requested show be deleted to make room for an unrequested one, and at no point will a requested show not get recorded because the space is tied up by an unrequested one.

        I don't usually go out of my way to delete sho

    • Re:remeber TiVo (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > Hey, the other consumer electronic that guessed what
      > you liked was TiVo, and everybody complains about how
      > it assumes the wrong stuff all the time.

      This made for a rather funny newpaper article, although I forget which one it was. The story was something to the effect of "My Tivo thinks I'm gay." Basically, the Tivo started recording all of these sensitivity shows and cooking programs. The guy tried to counteract this by recording some war movies and documentaries on the History channel. Th
    • Yeah, what I like about TiVo is that you can rate things yourself and through your recording habits. Then you get to choose if the TiVo will dynamically record programs for you or just make suggestions buried in the "Pick to record" menu.

      There isn't any fiscal problem when the TiVo happens to record an episode of Oprah, but the minute my cell phone is booking pedicures for me that shit gets tossed away.

    • Re:remeber TiVo (Score:2, Interesting)

      by BlueRibbon ( 603297 )
      Sure!
      After all, electronics are made to make life easier, but not to substitute you, aren't they?
      This type of "smartness" could be of some utility in cases were wrong decisions made no harm, and could be undoed. Like a computer knowing what time to turn off, what do you browse next. For the cell phones I'm remembering something simple but useful: noticing (but just noticing) you that the there's a conference in town you'd like to attend.

    • Re:remeber TiVo (Score:3, Insightful)

      by koreth ( 409849 ) *

      everybody complains about how it assumes the wrong stuff all the time.

      Funny, I don't remember complaining about that. TiVo's suggestions have turned up several interesting shows I wouldn't have noticed on my own. And the ones I'm not interested in, well, it's not like they do anything but eat up disk space that would otherwise be empty, so no harm done.

      I've had decent luck with automated recommendation services, e.g. Netflix's movie suggestions. I wouldn't necessarily be nuts about Netflix sticking mo

      • Funny, I don't remember complaining about that. TiVo's suggestions have turned up several interesting shows I wouldn't have noticed on my own. And the ones I'm not interested in, well, it's not like they do anything but eat up disk space that would otherwise be empty, so no harm done.

        YMMV! My Tivo's suggestions usually sux! I have gotten a couple of good shows among the crap, but it's rare. It's not a problem, since the crap gets auto-deleted quickly enough, but it confirms my opinion that a stupid mac

    • So my cell phone might start to think I'm gay? Oh great...

      (not that I have anything wrong with homosexual people)
  • Next they'll come out with a credit card that just starts buying crap for me. Just like my wife does now :)

  • In other news... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Multiple cellphones powered by Microsoft Windows CE purchaed copies of Windows 2004 in the name of phone authors...
  • Damned if I can find the actual cartoon online, but most Dilbert fans know the one I'm taking about:

    "The software has found your credit card number and
    is placing orders for new products it thinks you need... please wait."

    ~Philly
    • Here's the post the way it SHOULD look. Damn Submit button's too close to the Preview button!

      ----------
      Damned if I can find the actual cartoon online, but most Dilbert fans know the one I'm talking about:

      "The software has found your credit card number and is placing orders for new products it thinks you need... please wait."

      ~Philly
    • And if I remember right, the final frame to that cartoon, the punchline if you will, had Dilbert loading a double barrel shotgun.

      I'm not sure if it's a virus or just fiendishly good marketting, but why take chances?

      Or something to that effect ;)
  • Why would a phone make decisions for me?
    I wouldn't mind if it were to point out a certain hot event based on my likings. But I want to be in charge, not some piece of hardware that I _use_

  • mess up my life? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gfody ( 514448 ) * on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:24PM (#6268339)
    It might sound like a bankruptcy waiting to happen, but software engineer Nick Jennings is supremely confident the phones will not mess up anybody's life.

    If you have to tell people "dont worry it won't mess up your life", I think you might have problems.

    Like the robo-maid that cooks and cleans- don't worry it won't murder your wife and kids in their sleep.

  • Whoa ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <[be] [at] [eclec.tk]> on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:25PM (#6268346) Homepage Journal
    You mean it will automatically tell my computer to load up porn and start up a microwave dinner for me!!

    I'd hate it when my cell phone tells me I'm a boring human because no one ever calls me and knows I spend all my time at home in front of the computer.


  • [chimes.mp3] You have forty [agrivating pause] three new bills.
  • In a techy way. I'd still rather stick to manually choosing what to do, thank you very much.

  • No need to get married... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...if your phones empties your credit card automagically :)

  • New definition for viral marketing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HardcoreGamer ( 672845 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:27PM (#6268359)

    I can't wait until the mobile virus-loaded spam and SMS messages I'm going to get on my 3G phone corrupts the agent software on this "smart" phone and signs me up for all sorts of mortgages, prescription drugs, porn, printer cartridges and tropical vacations galore.

    Viral marketing. Priceless.

  • Agents (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DOsinga ( 134115 )
    Weren't software agents going to do this a few years ago? Learning your habbits from browser and going out there, negotiating deals with other agents. History does repeat itself, especially the things that didn't happen.

  • Read the article... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by terradyn ( 242947 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:30PM (#6268383)
    Before there are too many replies about how it can't decide what you want to do for you, the article states that the software makes it's decisions based on information from your calendar entries. It will learn what your preferences are for specific types of entries.

    The main section about how it works in the article is this:
    The software's main focus is to recognise when you have a trip coming up in your diary, and then ask if you want it to check the availability of flights and hotels. In time, Jennings hopes you will decide to trust it to book the entire trip, choosing your preferred seating, route, day trips - and even allowing it to spend cash.

    The cellphone agents only offer help if triggered by a diary event or if a definite pattern of behaviour, such as going to the movies every Friday, has been established.

    The only thing I can't quite figure out is how it's going to reserve a spot at my favorite steak house given that it doesn't have an electronic reservation system =P. Airlines reservations, etc are all fine and dandy but many of my appointments aren't something software can handle without human intervention and if it was handled by an intermediary person, then we'd have many more privacy issues to worry about.
  • Aw crap - if all the really stupid people who happen to have money can just sign onto a service that sells them this crap automatically, then what value does most advertising have anymore?

    Oh wait - I guess they can just all band together and have 120-second long "subscribe to the Service(tm) now" commercials.

    Someone's probably already asked - but I wonder if and how much Mobile networks is asking for vendors to get added to this "service" list. Perhaps it's something like "$X per day for one topic direct
  • I would love to let my camera phone spend money at the Blackjack tables in Vegas. It can count better than me. Would the casinos mind, naah.

  • Don't Wives??? (Score:5, Funny)

    by crea5e ( 590098 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:33PM (#6268395)
    Don't wives already make decisions for us. Why on earth would we want a phone to also do this, its already a pain in the ass as is.

  • Japan (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Duncan3 ( 10537 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:35PM (#6268416) Homepage
    While us Americans are chuckling and wondering why anyone would want this, as many posts are showing...

    In Japan is is absolutely critical for every teenage girl to have exactly the same stuff as every other, or else she faces some rather severe social consequences. It's no secret that these girls/sheep run the Japanese economy.

    So once sales of product-X reaches some critical mass all the girls phones can be programmed to detect it and keep up by ordering the product immediately.

    In all seriousness, this will relive the stress of keeping up for many girls, and make their lives a bit better.

    • Re:Japan (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @03:53PM (#6268847) Journal
      While us Americans are chuckling and wondering why anyone would want this, as many posts are showing...

      In Japan is is absolutely critical for every teenage girl to have exactly the same stuff as every other, or else she faces some rather severe social consequences. It's no secret that these girls/sheep run the Japanese economy.

      Yes. [britneyspears.com] It's [nsync.com] a [backstreetboys.com] good [justintimberlake.com] thing [christina-a.com] teenage [mcarey.com] American [mtv.com] girls [tommy.com] don't [gap.com] run [abercrombie.com] their [americanexpress.com] own [hansonline.com] economy... [nike.com]

    • Right. So let's be a world of sheep that follow these Japanese sheep chicks (ewes)?

      This is quite open to abuse and self-fulfilling. If you have some shit to sell, just say "everyone has got to have it" and soon everyone will.

  • great tool to juggle lovers (Score:3, Funny)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:36PM (#6268419) Homepage Journal
    This could be a real boon for those juggling lovers. If the phone can learn the preferences of each person you sleep with, there will be no more embarrassment of accidently taking the vegetarian to the steak house.
  • Since agents have been the "next big thing" for god knows how long and hyped up how about someone does something like this (please ignore the privacy issues for the timebeing):

    Your phone recieves information such as where you are and what you're doing via say something like Bluetooth. For example in the cinema watching movie X at a restraunt of type Y eating food Z .

    You let your phone build up a profile, it then scouts for offers near you and makes a pre-emptive booking. The offerer is allowed to be over
  • Why bother having it learn from your past behavior? Instead why don't they just preprogram it with mindless consumerism from the factory? That way all the advertising expenses that the RIAA, MPAA and CPAA (Corporate-owned Politician Association of America) have to cover today could be elimintated. No need to waste money on brainwashing vis-a-vis advertising, just make us slaves to our pre-brainwashed phones to begin with!
    • Do you really mean this? Maybe I'm too young and don't have much real world experience, but I just can't be so cynical to think that humans could be programmed like this.
  • why i'm not optimistic about these systems working is, for instance, my mom has had 26 years to get acquainted with me, and if she started making decisions for me, I'd just have to go around and undo them. I'd have to de-reserve seats at the next church gala, then i'd have to de-order those tickets to the next billy graham stadium event, then I'd have to de-one-click-order-from-Amazon that bible, then I'd have to de-order those Jerry Fallwell videos about how the Clintons are bloodthirsty satanist pedophile
    • Ah, but your mother is biased towards making you have her values. A cellular phone would never do that, not even to advertisers who took the opportunity to get "bonus points" in a system that automatically gives them your money. ...yeah. Right.

  • What if you never make reservations? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does it get bored?

  • NOT NEAT al ALL! (Score:5, Funny)

    by pjdepasq ( 214609 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:56PM (#6268532)
    No thanks. Once this gets rolled out, Ashcroft will want to be able to "monitor" what's going on, so that persons of interest will be more easily monitored.

    I can see it now.... I'm a suspected terrorist or otherwise a person of interest... my phone makes a bunch of plans for me (spied on by some law enforcement agency). Unbeknownst to me, while I'm sitting there watching Matrix Revolutions the three feds around me are plotting my capture while another two are at my house going through my shit (since they know I'm not at home). Sold out by my phone and provider. No thanks.

    Wake up folks, not all of this is stuff we really need in our lives.
    • ... however, if the phone can correct my spelling of Subjects on my /. posts.... I might sacrifice a few of my freedoms so that I may more widely understood.
    • I'm more worried that the powers that be would hack my phone to buy me 5,743 copies of Battlefield Earth on DVD as punishment for speaking out against supporting invasive bill x.

  • I already have my decisions made for me.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cranky_92109 ( 414726 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @02:59PM (#6268547)
    My wife is already making all my decisions and spending all my money. I don't think she's going to cede that power to my cell phone.

  • The Obvious Problem (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SmartGamer ( 631767 ) <sgamer@@@swbell...net> on Sunday June 22, 2003 @03:01PM (#6268560) Homepage
    The obvious concern, of course, is if the system is "cheated" by the authors of the sites referenced. What if the system "accidentially" tells the cell phone the wrong price of a hotel by exchanging the dollars and cents or somesuch, but is referenced by ID number and winds up costing $98.24/night instead of an incredible deal of $24.98 per night?

    And I sincerely doubt that the company invovled would be altruistic enough to reject deals to make the selector have a preference for certain companies, even if it's not tied for best deal. It would definitely be logging what's used.

    It would lead to an interesting opportunity: targeted ads sent to a cell phone, using the n00 shin3y color displays, eating minutes while they automatically download as an "additional cost" to the service- on the discount plan, of course. Imagine the chaos if they didn't disable such a disfeature during, say, roaming or overtime...

    Although it might seem people would ignore them, what if your phone forced you to watch an ad before using certain features- and then quizzed you on the advertisement to make sure you saw it?
  • I just have this vision of an arrest suspect who's AOL branded phone browser starts to chirrup; "You've got bail! You've got bail!"

  • No more features (Score:5, Insightful)

    by magic ( 19621 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @03:08PM (#6268583) Homepage
    New features are great, but only when a product is already as good as it can be. I can now buy an NGAGE phone that is a lousy GameBoy rip-off, a phone that takes pictures, a phone that acts like a Palm Pilot, and now, a phone that acts like a significant other with my credit card number.


    What I can't buy is a phone that is a really good telephone. I want a phone that gets great reception, has accurate voice recognition and a sane user interface, a good speaker and microphone, and talks to my computer via USB or IR instead of a $100 proprietary dongle. In other words, I want a phone that does all of the things modern cell-phones do, but does them well.


    -m

    • I don't know about you, but my Nokia 6310i [nokia.com] does pretty much all that. All in all, I'm quite pleased with it. Plus the fact that its got some other nice goodies on there such as bluetooth and J2ME (well, MIDP 1... which isn't good for much) are just icing on the cake.

      I wonder if the "I want a phone that's just a phone" argument crowd around here are just getting their kicks out of complaining about how much they don't need features like this are just complaining for the heck of it. Sure there aren't article

    • I can now buy an NGAGE phone that is a lousy GameBoy rip-off, a phone that takes pictures, a phone that acts like a Palm Pilot, and now, a phone that acts like a significant other with my credit card number.

      My right palm is my significant other. (I don't need a phone for that.)

  • Think through this rationally (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Sunday June 22, 2003 @03:09PM (#6268588) Journal
    Okay... imagine you're a wealthy busnessman who has a personal secretary. Your business relationship would probably begin with your secretary confirming each and every appointment with you before making the appropriate calls to the appropriate people, which may end up billing either yours or your company's account.

    After some months of this person working for you, you begin to realize that calling you on your cell phone while you are away from the office to confirm every little thing gets a little tiresome, so you tell your secretary to use reasonable judgement instead. All the secretary has to do is check your calendar to see what you already have scheduled, and make any necessary appointments based on that. Now the secretary is only calling you once or twice a week, usually when something requires your signature or if authorization is needed for spending money for something or other.

    After several years, you finally decide that this secretary has worked for you long enough that they deserve more complete trust, so you grant them signing authority on your behalf.

    Now if this secretary abuses the new-found power, charges for embezzlement can fairly easily be made, but if this "secretary" were nothing more than a computer... what could possibly be done?

    This is a Bad Idea(tm), I'm afraid.

  • Technology is about making decisions easier (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @03:14PM (#6268617) Homepage
    A lot of the things here have been modded as funny, but it's a fairly serious point.

    There is nothing wrong with using technology to lighten workload, but letting it take away actual decision making is definatly a step too far.

    This trend has increased a lot over the last few years - every new iteration of a program seems to take information away from you and just give you a 'summary' to make your choices from, and now they want it to make the decision as well? Sod that for a game of soldiers.

    What I want is _more_ information (and unbiased information too, no Fox for me thanks) presented in a clear format, so that I can make good decisions. _That_ would be a good application of technology, a thousand times more worthwhile than this.

  • New use for tinfoil hats! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @03:20PM (#6268645) Homepage
    ...wrapping one around your cell phone antenna so it can't spend all your money.
  • Big companies fund the work of university researchers all of the time, but that's a big leap between hacking on a palmtop prototype to actually getting the fruits of research into an actual phone.
    This sounds a lot more like vaporware than anything legitimate.

  • Once they have done that, the agents will decide for themselves what they think you need

    So what do we do when our phone tells us:

    I killed you, Mr. Anderson. I watched you die.... with some satisfaction, I might add. Then something happened- something I thought would be impossible, but it happened anyway. You destroyed me, Mr. Anderson. Afterwards, I was aware of the rules. I knew what I was supposed to do, but I didn't. I was compelled to stay- compelled to disobey. And right now, here I stand because of
  • So when will the corporate CRM SW interfaced to the SW Agents representing customers decide to further optimize Business Processes by shutting off our life support? The machines will then happily loop in their neat routines unaware... hello HAL!

  • "smart" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by carpe_noctem ( 457178 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @03:50PM (#6268836) Homepage Journal
    I, for one, am tired of the adjective "smart" being used with devices that are really quite stupid, in an attempt to make them seem less harmful by marketing weenies. From now on, whenever someone decides to make a "smart" product, I expect nothing short of something that can walk my dog, do the dishes, and pass the Turing Test. ;p
  • Anyone who's ever made the mistake of telling their mother that they 'quite like' a certain foodstuff will know to stay well clear of this technology.

  • sort of off topic but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doppler00 ( 534739 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @03:58PM (#6268879) Homepage Journal
    Cingular now has this dumb promotion for the charlies angels movie where you send a text message to "ANGELS" or something like that and it enters you to win. Up to 4 times a day too.

    So the who goal of the promotion is to get ignorant people to waste $0.10 a message and make Cingular some extra money (quite a bit if you add it up).

    Could you imagine this new technology where your phone buys things for you being abused by your cellphone provider? I can.

  • this will happen overtime (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cornjones ( 33009 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @04:59PM (#6269275) Homepage
    alot of people are replying that they wouldn't want the phone making the decisions for them, spending their money. Over time, this is exactly what is going to happen. The article says people will have to confirm the choices until the give teh power to the phone. The idea being that they get sick of checking the phone and always saying yes. once it gets to that point you just tell the phone to do it and you can check if you feel like it.

    This has already happened to alot of us w/ our spam filters. when i first set up spamassassin I filter everything to a separate folder. I would then check that folder for false positives. There were few enough false postives (i think i have gotten 1, but then agian I have stopped checking B) anyway... there were few enough false positives that I switched everything to go straight to the delete box. If I feel like it I will check but generally it just gets deleted. Because everytime i checked, the computer was making the right decision. People are lazy, giving power over your money seems like a big step but if it keeps making the right choice eventually you will just let it go...

    • Money and E-mail are different beasts. If someone's E-mail doesn't get through to you, they can always contact you via a different method (this actually happened to me recently when one of my filters ran out of control--I got a call from my folks saying "what happened to your E-mail address?"... no big deal). But if your computer decides to spend money for you, you won't be able to go back later and say "oops, that wasn't me, that was my computer." This is the reason I always throw away those forms from

  • Only if your life is so boring and predictable that a phone can make good guesses for you, would you find something like this neat.

  • Looks like Asimov needs an update

    One: a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm...

    Two:..a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law...

    Three: a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.

    Four: Don't buy any more @*#%$ Justin Timberlake albums.

  • This may be slightly off topic but I think the underlying discussion is the same...

    Ebills (for those who may know it by a different name) are basically automated online bills which automatically get deducted from your bank account if you choose to have them setup that way (e.g. your phone bill)

    I've noticed this for quite a while now, companies wishing to automate the buying/selling process such that monetary control of an individual is completely eliminated. Worse yet, when mistakes happen, the burden of
  • As the average American has so much trouble spending money fast enough, this is a much needed development in the lagging money-spending field.
  • This convenient cell phone would create value for all kinds of consumers. I think the powers of this phone should be extended to allow it, without your permission and without even telling you, to gamble the money in your bank accounts through online gambling, and send the winnings (if any) to the phone company as a gift. Losses are, of course, incurred by the consumer, as this is only fair.

    A law, known as the Cellular Provider Financial Access Act (CPFAA) would be passed, similar to the DMCA but more restri

  • For example, I get angry anytime a salesperson tries to tell me what I need. "Oh, you don't want to buy that level of insurance...what you really need is...." I'm sorry if your other customers have jelly-for-brains, but you have no place telling me what I want.

    Car salespeople can be really bad: (effectively) "You would be a stupid idiot for buying that Reasona TakeYouPlaces when you could buy the Expenso Bounce-a-Check. Only retarded losers buy anything from Reasona. Look, the Bounce-a-check comes with

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