Ray Ozzie's new app reengineers the phone call

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isn’t this Pinger? et al ?

What will Dilbert say about it?

This will likely end as another dreaded tool for hogging people’s time and draining their remaining life force.

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I missed a lot of nuance in this article because it wasn’t a list of .mp3s that I could play by clicking one after the other.

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i love the example they show…lol.

person1: “Traffic - Running Late”
tara: “Start Walking!”
person1: “F*ck You! (Tara)”
(because some things you really want to say, typing just won’t do…)

Seriously though, it sounds cool, but I hope they incorporate really good speech to text so you can quickly skim a series of conversations, instead of having to click a bunch to listen to or to try and find one comment in a conversation of hundreds. I can see some serious flaws in the way they are implementing this that could easily be resolved and make this the call killer.

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The software visionary who created Lotus Notes

Straight off the bat, this article is going for ‘contentious’.

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Using the sensors on a recipient’s phone, icons tell you whether that person is on the move (walking or driving), how the person is connected to the network, and even what time zone she’s in.

No thanks!

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If you attempt to delete the app, it calls in a drone strike.

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This gentleman doesn’t look to me like a hard-working engineer/inventor toiling in his garage. He looks very much like a fellow who, in the Edison tradition, cheerfully takes credit for the hard work of his employees.

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Lotus Notes, the brilliant system that eschewed database tech for flat files routed by email…

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Exactly. Maybe someone at some point in time saw Lotus Notes as visionary, but my memories from, get ready for it, 4 years ago, when my organization finally detached from that ancient behemoth, we all wore the scars.

That and the quote

That fluidity turns caller hegemony into something more like an improvisational jazz combo.

Yes, we all wish our phone calls were chaotic and nonsensical, but in a bitter-sweet, escapist way…

This was a bizarre hagiography for an app developer, where never before had a disclosure of a personal connection between the publisher and subject, which tried to skate by as a cute coincidence, glared so brightly…

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Uh, isn’t this Google Wave for your phone?

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Lotus Notes was pretty visionary – circa 1992 or so, it was probably the best e-mail client out there – but those were the days when there really wasn’t a whole lot of competition – even Outlook didn’t exist then. Why anyone would be using it in the 21st century is another question.

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*adopts thousand-yard-stare, starts rocking back & forth.

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I once worked helldesk for Apple via a subcontracted firm (in the 21st century), and they had to use Lotus, cause Outlook was verboten.

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Birmingham City Council was shackled to Lotus Notes from some years. You would see a skull and crossbones icon on colleagues’ desktops called “Kill Note”. This was for when Lotus threw such a strop it was impossible to escape from it. Those of us without Kill Note had to hammer the enter key, hoping to wriggle our way out.

based on sensors and location, the person you are trying to reach is currently using the restroom, we estimate based on average previous restroom usage for this user that your hold time will be 4min before they are available for your call.

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coincidentally, laughing squid also has a post about an app that will revolutionize communications, as well as a parallel disclaimer about a connection between publication and app to that on Medium. I guess this is the day that will be remembered as the day that blog editors all revolutionize communication through their mildly original hand-held computer programs.

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