David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Perils of the pocket call
By Bob Sullivan
May 9, 2008
The other day I got a surprising message from an old source. It was a ?declined meeting? notice from Microsoft Outlook. "Bob, Marty is on a flight at that time,? it said. ?He could do between 12 and 2 tomorrow."
The problem is, I hadn't invited Marty to a meeting. In fact, I hadn't talked to him in years. So I wrote back to his assistant and said so. She insisted I had, and she had evidence. She wrote again and forwarded my original meeting request. It sure looked as though I had initiated the meeting.
Then I pulled out my cell phone and looked in its sent items folder. Sure enough, there was the invitation.
I'm sure you've heard about pocket calls. Something bumps into a cell phone button when the device is sitting idly in a pocket or purse, and a phone number is accidentally dialed. Upon answering, all the recipient hears is background noise.
Well, I went one step further. I had managed to "pocket invite" Marty to a meeting. I did not come to this conclusion quickly, as it seemed fanciful to think that my cell phone could invite me to a meeting I hadn't asked for. But I think I know what happened. Somehow, perhaps with the aid of a mischievous set of keys, my phone's touch screen had been activated, and a meeting initiated, the attendee dialog box activated and the invitation sent out. Marty's last name begins with "A," so he was near the top of the list of possible invitees.
I hope Marty was good natured about it. But not every inadvertent cell phone trick is quite so harmless. In what could be called the worst pocket call ever, an Oregon man who's in Afghanistan fighting with the Army accidentally called his parents a few weeks ago during the heat of battle. The call, during an active firefight, is harrowing to hear (the soldier?s brother has posted the audio file on YouTube). The solider, Stephen Phillips, had tried to call his parents earlier in the day, so all it took was a bump against the phone's redial button.
Fortunately, neither Phillips nor his comrades were hurt in the confrontation.
Pocket calling can have other serious consequences. Accidental calls to emergency 9-1-1 operators waste a lot of time. Because some phones allow one-touch dialing to 9-1-1, accidental emergency calls are common. You can hear a small collection of 9-1-1 pocket calls at this Web site.
Pocket calling is an all-too-common 21st Century phenomenon. You might also hear it described by its less glamorous name, the butt call, which describes a particular kind of accidental dialing that occurs when someone sits on their phone.
Dirty Pocket calls
It's not hard to find anecdotes online of accidental calls placed during the most embarrassing -- and intimate -- moments. But usually the calls are innocuous and recipients hear little more than the swishing of fabric as the phone is bounced around someone's pocket. Unfortunately, it's common that pocket calls occur in bunches, because whatever triggered the call happens again and again.
More than a few times, I've yelled to friends, "Hey, down here! Look down here! You keep calling me!" And I know I've done the same thing too many times (sorry, boss).
The problem generally is limited to what the cell phone industry called "candy bar" style phones. These are the opposite of flip phones. Candy bar phones are flat and have no covers, so their buttons are exposed. That makes them easier to whip out and use, but it's also a recipe for accidents.
Through the years there have been several attempts to minimize the pocket call hazard on candy bar phones. Many phones now have a locking feature which disables the buttons. That works just fine, but by locking the phone you've diminished the design advantage of the candy bar ? it?s quick and easy use. I password-protect my smart phone (don't you? You're crazy if you don't), which limits my pocket calling to the first few minutes after I've put my phone back in my pants. Thank goodness my keys don't know my password yet.
Fix our phones!
But this is really a hardware design flaw. It's up to cell phone makers to improve their candy bars and innovate to save us from ourselves. Apple's iPhone has a decent strategy -- a small locking button on the top turns off screen-touch functionality. Unfortunately, my fashionable iPhone friends tell me they often forget to hit the lock.
How about some sensible behavior monitoring? After two or three calls to the same number in quick succession, for example, the phone could be locked until the dialer proves it's not an accident. A simple keystroke challenge (?If you are a person, type 5634? or some such) would do the trick.
So would a keystroke or finger gesture that would be required to "wake" up the phone at all, like a figure 8.
The iPhone's mandatory swipe after unlocking is a good idea.
In the meantime, we're all stuck coming up with our own solutions. And obviously I'm still working on mine. So to all my pocket call victims, I apologize. And to Marty, well, I can only offer this: What's better then a meeting that gets canceled?
By Bob Sullivan
May 9, 2008
The other day I got a surprising message from an old source. It was a ?declined meeting? notice from Microsoft Outlook. "Bob, Marty is on a flight at that time,? it said. ?He could do between 12 and 2 tomorrow."
The problem is, I hadn't invited Marty to a meeting. In fact, I hadn't talked to him in years. So I wrote back to his assistant and said so. She insisted I had, and she had evidence. She wrote again and forwarded my original meeting request. It sure looked as though I had initiated the meeting.
Then I pulled out my cell phone and looked in its sent items folder. Sure enough, there was the invitation.
I'm sure you've heard about pocket calls. Something bumps into a cell phone button when the device is sitting idly in a pocket or purse, and a phone number is accidentally dialed. Upon answering, all the recipient hears is background noise.
Well, I went one step further. I had managed to "pocket invite" Marty to a meeting. I did not come to this conclusion quickly, as it seemed fanciful to think that my cell phone could invite me to a meeting I hadn't asked for. But I think I know what happened. Somehow, perhaps with the aid of a mischievous set of keys, my phone's touch screen had been activated, and a meeting initiated, the attendee dialog box activated and the invitation sent out. Marty's last name begins with "A," so he was near the top of the list of possible invitees.
I hope Marty was good natured about it. But not every inadvertent cell phone trick is quite so harmless. In what could be called the worst pocket call ever, an Oregon man who's in Afghanistan fighting with the Army accidentally called his parents a few weeks ago during the heat of battle. The call, during an active firefight, is harrowing to hear (the soldier?s brother has posted the audio file on YouTube). The solider, Stephen Phillips, had tried to call his parents earlier in the day, so all it took was a bump against the phone's redial button.
Fortunately, neither Phillips nor his comrades were hurt in the confrontation.
Pocket calling can have other serious consequences. Accidental calls to emergency 9-1-1 operators waste a lot of time. Because some phones allow one-touch dialing to 9-1-1, accidental emergency calls are common. You can hear a small collection of 9-1-1 pocket calls at this Web site.
Pocket calling is an all-too-common 21st Century phenomenon. You might also hear it described by its less glamorous name, the butt call, which describes a particular kind of accidental dialing that occurs when someone sits on their phone.
Dirty Pocket calls
It's not hard to find anecdotes online of accidental calls placed during the most embarrassing -- and intimate -- moments. But usually the calls are innocuous and recipients hear little more than the swishing of fabric as the phone is bounced around someone's pocket. Unfortunately, it's common that pocket calls occur in bunches, because whatever triggered the call happens again and again.
More than a few times, I've yelled to friends, "Hey, down here! Look down here! You keep calling me!" And I know I've done the same thing too many times (sorry, boss).
The problem generally is limited to what the cell phone industry called "candy bar" style phones. These are the opposite of flip phones. Candy bar phones are flat and have no covers, so their buttons are exposed. That makes them easier to whip out and use, but it's also a recipe for accidents.
Through the years there have been several attempts to minimize the pocket call hazard on candy bar phones. Many phones now have a locking feature which disables the buttons. That works just fine, but by locking the phone you've diminished the design advantage of the candy bar ? it?s quick and easy use. I password-protect my smart phone (don't you? You're crazy if you don't), which limits my pocket calling to the first few minutes after I've put my phone back in my pants. Thank goodness my keys don't know my password yet.
Fix our phones!
But this is really a hardware design flaw. It's up to cell phone makers to improve their candy bars and innovate to save us from ourselves. Apple's iPhone has a decent strategy -- a small locking button on the top turns off screen-touch functionality. Unfortunately, my fashionable iPhone friends tell me they often forget to hit the lock.
How about some sensible behavior monitoring? After two or three calls to the same number in quick succession, for example, the phone could be locked until the dialer proves it's not an accident. A simple keystroke challenge (?If you are a person, type 5634? or some such) would do the trick.
So would a keystroke or finger gesture that would be required to "wake" up the phone at all, like a figure 8.
The iPhone's mandatory swipe after unlocking is a good idea.
In the meantime, we're all stuck coming up with our own solutions. And obviously I'm still working on mine. So to all my pocket call victims, I apologize. And to Marty, well, I can only offer this: What's better then a meeting that gets canceled?
